Desmos Marbleslides Challenge Set

This year, I'm trying something new with my students.  The idea came from a Desmos Fellow name Sean Sweeney.  His blog post does a great job explaining how this works; I invite you to read about his experiences with what he calls his Marbleslides Challenge Set.

Two weeks ago, my geometry classes had just finished our unit on parallel and perpendicular lines.  As part of that unit, I had students do the Desmos Marbleslides: Lines activity.  Students loved the activity and asked for more Marbleslides.  In response, I unleashed the challenge set to my students.  [At least the first three challenges.]

Each week I am unlocking one more challenge inside the activity.  This past week was an especially cool challenge, with the screen almost like a Plinko board.  I've had a number students find solutions and experiences the "Success!" found at the end of the Desmos rainbow.  And as a teacher, you know you're winning when students are begging for the next challenge to be unlocked.

I challenge you to read Sean's post and try the Desmos Marbleslides challenge out in your school.  Happy 'Slidin'!

NCTM Conference @ Orlando Reflection

I’m on my way back home from the NCTM Regional Conference in Orlando.  I had an awesome four days in Florida.  My brain feels somewhere between the consistency of oatmeal and Jello.  I need to get my thoughts recorded before I return home to four children and the responsibilities of real life.  [Update: I didn’t get the full post written before I returned home; the movies on the airplane stole my attention.]

I had initially planned on doing a running diary-like blog post of my experiences at the conference, but soon realized that there is too much info to consume to be continually writing and reflecting.  Instead, I give you my five biggest takeaways from my conference experience.

1.         Desmos is still a mystery to too many classroom teachers.

            Okay, not all of Desmos.  But the teacher activities found at teacher.desmos.com.  In the first session I attended on Thursday, Matt Vaudrey (The Classroom Chef) had participants pair up with a partner and play Polygraph.  I rotated around to four different people and asked each of them if they had heard of Desmos before.  Three of out four responded along the lines of “Yeah, my students and I use the calculator quite often.”  When I asked them about every using Polygraph before, all three responded “No” and had never been to the Desmos teacher site.  The fourth person had never used Desmos at all before.

            Overall, I counted seven sessions (out of about 260) that included Desmos in the title or the description.  Other session may have absolutely used Desmos as part of their presentations and simply didn’t include “Desmos” in the description.  Not all of the seven sessions necessarily used the Desmos teacher site.  I’m by no means advocating for Desmos to take over the conference.  However, I continue to be floored at how many teachers have no idea that the Desmos teacher site exists.

            When talking to some of my Desmos Fellow / MTBoS colleagues, I mentioned my surprise at the lack of knowledge about the teacher site.  One conjecture we made is that if you visit desmos.com there is a link to the teacher site, but the link doesn’t really “stick out”.  We felt as though flashing neon lights might help.  Another conjecture is that until textbook companies direct teachers to go to the teacher site, it will never reach all who really need to see it.  I’m curious about something… textbook companies like Pearson and CPM are now starting to embed Desmos activities into their curriculum.  I’m wondering if teachers using those resources are prompted to “Go to teacher.desmos.com, create a class code, etc” or if they simply are able to run the activity via a link found in their curriculum’s resources.

            Teachers need to be told about the Desmos teacher site and need to be guided through setting up their account, searching for & bookmarking activities, creating a class code, and using the teacher dashboard.  There is also a strong need for a session where the Activity Builder is demonstrated, and the Activity Builder Code is investigated.  Which brings me to…

2.         I feel really motivated to share with other teachers by speaking at conferences.

            One NCTM regional conference next fall is in Kansas City, which is less than 6 hours away from Brookings via car.  The deadline for proposals to speak is December 2^nd.  I’m going to apply to speak and I’m leaning toward my proposal being about the Desmos teacher site.

            This week, I prepared a number of proposals for sessions at the SDCTM conference in February.  My colleague & fellow Desmos Fellow Jarrod and I are also going to submit a proposal for an in-depth session at the TIE conference in April.  I’m also happy to be presenting a full day session on Desmos at the SDCTM Summer Symposium in July.

            Also this week, I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to speak on ideas and things happening in my classroom that are not connected to Desmos.  Resources such as Which One Doesn’t Belong?, Estimation 180, 3 ACT tasks, My Favorite No, and Padlet had their fingerprints in many sessions.  Manipulatives such as Algebra Tiles, Patty Paper, and GeoBoards were demonstrated as tools that help student develop conceptual understanding.  I regularly use all of these things in my classroom.  One of the session proposals I prepared for the SDCTM conference demonstrates a few of these resources.

3.         I have fresh ideas about how to improve what I’m doing in my classroom.

            Continual improvement is something I like to think I strive for.  I gained a lot of new ideas this week on things I can do to improve my craft.  A couple of ideas I’m hoping to implement soon are warm-up routines, tweaking my WODB a bit to make students think about a reason each one doesn’t belong, and using GIFs embedded into Desmos to help students visualize the intended mathematics (thanks, Jedidiah!).  Also, I was reminded that I need to take a long look at Mathalicious and Quizlet Live; both resources seem to have some pretty strong supplementary resources.

4.         TI and I are on a break.

            This takeaway needs its own blog post.  Coming soon…

5.         The online math community is powerful.

            I’m going to have to say that networking & collaborating was one of the highlights of my week.  It began before the conference even started while I was walking to the Wednesday keynote session.  I bumped into Sam Shah on my walk to the conference center.  He and I met this summer in San Francisco at the Desmos Fellows weekend.  He introduced me to two of his colleagues who were walking with him.

            Then in the keynote session, I happen to sit next to Tracy Johnston Zager.  Her and I have a number of short conversations as part of the interactive session.  Directly in front of us are Desmos Fellows Heather Kohn and Lisa Bejarano.  Heather had asked Lisa and I to present on the Global Math Department’s webinar back on September 19^th.  (Our session was titled “What’s New at Desmos?” and yes, Dan Meyer presented with us.  Due to Dan’s loyal followers, there were over 500 people trying to view the webinar.  We crashed the host server & were unable to effectively show what was new at Desmos.)  Heather and Lisa introduced me to #MTBoS faithful Hedge and Joel Bezaire.  Michael Fenton was one of the keynote speakers and I spoke with him briefly after his presentation. 

            The next two days, I run into Desmos Fellows Carl Oliver and Jedidiah Butler.  I chatted with Christopher Danielson about this “Math on a Stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.  I sat next to Kyle Pearce in a couple of different sessions.  I met Justin Aion and David Wees.  I caught up with David Barnes and Patrick Vannebush, both of who I met at NCTM Minneapolis back in 2015.  The list goes on…

Holding down the fort at the #MTBoS booth.

I’d strongly recommend attending an NCTM if you have the resources to do so.  SO.  MUCH.  COLLABORATION.  I feel extremely fortunate to be able to attend.  I want to say “Thank You” once again to Daktronics for supporting SDCTM and the SD Math Teacher of the YearAward.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be presenting next fall in Kansas City.  Time to get working on the speaker proposal!

Math in the Real World: Student Created Memes

One of my overarching goals for my geometry classes is for students to realize we can find geometry nearly everywhere we look in our everyday lives.  Yes, most of my students can identify the corners of their walls as right angles, they understand the ceiling and floor represent planes, and they are cool with the idea that the rails on train tracks are parallel.  But what I want for students is for them to really see the geometry all around us and for them to begin to see things geometrically even when they're not trying to.

To help develop this habit of mind, I assign students the challenge of creating a meme.  Students must take a picture (searching in Google is not allowed) of something they see in their lives that relates to the geometry concepts we have learned about.  I give students a quick intro to the website addtext.com and set them free.  Students submit their memes on our class Padlet and are able to see the work of their classmates.

I plan to do this same assignment once a quarter.  Here are a few of my favorites from the first quarter.

Desmos Fellowship 2017 Reflection

I’m writing this blog post on my flight home from San Francisco.  I figure I’d better transition my thoughts into words before I return home to the responsibilities of being a father of four. 

The Desmos Fellows weekend was awesome.  It was everything I had imagined plus 120% more.  Here are some highlights, in no particular order…

Star Shock – Team Desmos

When I first arrived at the Desmos Headquarters on Friday afternoon, who other than Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) was there greeting us at the door.  I’ve met Dan before on two separate occasions, but this one felt a bit different.  Inside the HQ, I cross paths with Shelley Carranza (@stcarranza).  I introduce myself to Michael Fenton (@mjfenton).  Not long after, Eli Luberoff (@eluberoff) enters the room. 

As introductions begin, I realize that I’m sitting in the chair that Desmos programmer Denis Lantsman (@dlants) typically sits in.  Jenny Wales (@jenny_wales), Cori McElwain (@CoriMcElwain), and Zack Ellis (@overZellis) are sitting nearby.  Many of the people who are responsible for creating activities I use in my classroom are all here.

As the weekend continued, I was able to interact a lot with the team from Desmos.  During lunch on Saturday, Michael and I had a conversation about our children.  I picked Dan’s brain about his thoughts on transitioning some 3-ACT tasks into Activity Builder.  I asked Eli if he is planning on billing SDCTM for his travel to South Dakota this past February.  I listened to Jenny talk about how neat New Orleans is.  All of these conversations helped the shock wear off a bit.

Michael Fenton, Jarrod, and I

Star Shock – The Fellowship

Prior to arriving, there was a lot of activity on Twitter and on the Desmos Slack from members of the Fellowship.  Some of the Fellows I had been following on Twitter for years.  I have read their blogs and borrowed their ideas and favorite lessons.  I felt like I knew a little bit about some of the Fellows but in a very impersonal way.

The personalization of those connections began even before I set foot in California.  In route to San Francisco, I had a stop in Denver.  While there, I met Jon Orr (@MrOrr_geek) and Angela Reilly Harden (@angelarh).  In the weeks leading up to the Fellows weekend, I had worked with Jon on an Activity Builder centered on algebra and “Two Truths and a Lie”.  Jon and Angela joined Jarrod (my Brookings colleague and fellow Fellow) and I and the four of us exchanged stories as we found our way to our hotel.

As I drifted around the room at Desmos HQ, I found myself shaking hands with a number of familiar names from Twitter and MTBoS.  I recognized some names from activities found in Desmos.  I started to wonder how I was selected to be a part of such a talented group of people.

Jon Orr and I

Professional Development

A big highlight of mine was being able to listen to the PD sessions put on by the Desmos team. 

Saturday morning, Michael gave a presentation about the Principles for Activity Building.  He had us work through Point Collector as a student and then analyze which design principles were being used during the activity.  It was great to do a deep dive into the 13 design principles.

Jenny and Shelley presented on the Desmos design process.  I learned a really cool strategy for creating activities that uses 8-squares and sticky notes.

Eli spoke to the group about the history and evolution of Desmos.  It was awesome to see some of the artifacts Eli was able to access and inspiring to hear about the future of Desmos.

Scott Miller (@smiller229) and Jenn Vadnais (@rilesblue) presented a session on strong presentation moves when speaking about Desmos.  I really enjoyed learning ways that I can improve my skill level as a presenter.

Dan led a two hour session focused on working with teachers and how to become a Desmos Certified presenter.  I really enjoyed learning about the types of things the team at Desmos wants us to be focusing on while giving presentations.  One big takeaway from Dan’s session was that technology allows teachers and students to co-construct the experience.  I hope to become a Desmos Certified presenter soon.

Michael's Presentation

Eli speaking about the history of Desmos

New Tools

Dan also led a session that introduced the Fellows to a new tool that we have access to inside of Activity Builder called Computation Layer (CL).  CL grants access into more of the guts of Activity Builder and allows creators to do a number of things that previously couldn’t have been done.  With my limited computer programming experience, I understand about 3.14% of what I have access to in CL.  During our work sessions, I learned a lot about CL thanks largely to Paul Jorgens (@pejorgens) and Angela.  I plan to continue to learn more about programming and using CL.

I’m very excited to see what some of the brightest Fellows can create for us to use these next few months.

Dan showing us CL.

Angela, Paul, and I

The City

This was my first time ever in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Jarrod and I enjoyed exploring the city.  Items we checked off our bucket list include seeing Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, riding a Cable Car, and eating at House of Prime Rib.  The weather was beautiful and the food was excellent.

Golden Gate @ Sunset

Hangin' on the Cable Car

Totally Impressed!

I’m excited to be part of this awesome group of people.  They re-kindled my fire to improve my practice, be a leader, and help change how student experience mathematics.

Desmos HQ

I love the fact that there is every issue of Mathematics Teacher in house.

Desmos Fellowship 2017

Desmos Fellowship Preview

Quick tangent: We are over halfway through June.  Where has the summer gone?


The second cohort of Desmos Fellows was recently announced.  I'm honored and excited to be a part of it.  When the first cohort was selected, I had to decline an invitation to join due to the birth of my child.  Fortunately, I was grandfathered into the second cohort and here we are!

I'm looking forward to learning from this Fellowship and being a part of something that is making major changes in the field of mathematics education.

PAEMST Application

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post that talked about GRIT.  In the post, I mentioned that my PAEMST application deadline was rapidly approaching and I had a lot of work to do.  I'm happy to say that I completed the application with a few hours to spare.  It pains me to realize how much of a deadline person I am.  I most always get done what needs to get done; however, I have an A+ in Procrastination 101.

A few brief thoughts that are stewing in my brain due to the application...
First of all, completing that application is a challenge.  It really made me think about things that I am doing in my classroom, and why I do those things.  It also makes me think about how I can improve moving forward.

This year, our district implemented Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and assigned each staff member to a PLC group.  We were provided 4 driving questions to lead our PLC focus and discussion.
1.  What do we want our students to learn?
2.  How will we know that they are learning?
3.  How will we respond when they don’t learn?
4.  How will we respond when they already know it?

I really like these questions.  I want to be able to answer these questions without hesitation and I want to be proud of my answers.  Right now, I can't say that I'm proud of my answers for each of these questions.  My PAEMST application helped me realize this.

My initial response to question 3 is the one I'm least proud of.  "How will we respond when they don't learn?"  What a great question.

In my classes right now, I have two or three students who are not learning what I expect them to.  I know this because they are currently in danger of failing the semester.   Each of the students' situations is unique and I don't want to dive into those details.  I will say that my answer to question 3 is not very strong right now.  My general response is "The students need to come in and get extra help."  The problem is that the students are not doing so, and I've done nothing beyond that.

I'm excited to see where the PLC discussion groups will lead us.

I may not receive the PAEMST award with the application I recently submitted.  Time will tell.  But one thing is certain -- I've done a lot of reflecting due to completing it.

GRIT...

This past Wednesday, our high school launched what we're calling "Advisory Period".  In brief, advisories will act a little like a homeroom for our high school students.  Once a week, students will meet with their advisory group for 30  minutes and engage in some sort of task -- team building, character building, class meetings, etc.  Advisory teachers will also monitor student grades and provide an extra layer of support for students who might be struggling.

Advisory groups will be grouped with students in the same grade.  I have been assigned students from the incoming freshmen class.  Therefore, this spring I was assigned to help the counselors with the entire class of seniors.  The counselors had a list of newsworthy items they disseminated to the seniors.  They also showed the seniors a video of a TED talk by Angela Lee Duckworth titled GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

As I watched the video, I found myself inspired by Angela's explanation of "Grit".  She says, "Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.  Grit is having stamina.  Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality."  I started to reflect on my goals and dreams and arrived at the realization that I haven't been very gritty as of late.

In 2015, I was nominated for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).  I worked hard to complete the challenging application and later found out that I was a state finalist for the award.  Ultimately, I did not win the award.  I received feedback on my application from the state and national level reviewers.  Much of my application was strong, but not strong enough.

Due to being a state finalist, I was automatically eligible to re-apply in 2017. [2016 was a K-6 level year.]   Much of my previous application can be used again, but improving it is where I've lacked grittiness.  I haven't had the motivation or perseverance to dig in and improve it.  The application is due on May 1st and the clock is ticking.

Thank you, Angela, for the inspirational talk.  Not only am I going to complete the award application, you have also re-kindled my motivation to write blog posts and be more reflective in my practice.  Sometimes I need a reminder to work hard and think critically about my teaching style, pedagogy, and decisions.  Angela's talk served as a great reminder.

2016: First Quarter Highlights

There is technically a week before the end of my first quarter, but there is a blog post waiting to be written.  This post is my first one in quite a while; it will be a random collection of things I've encountered these first two months of school.

1.  Dan Meyer recently blogged about his Ten Lessons From Ten Years of Blogging.  His first one is "Figure out why you're blogging."  I blog for two major reasons.  First, it is good for me to reflect on what I'm doing in the classroom.  My blog has helped me think more deeply about the "Why's" of my work.  Second, I blog because I feel as though I have something to contribute to the greater good of our profession.  A majority of my activities, lessons, tasks, etc. have come from other people's work and ideas, many of which I have found on blogs.  I want to give back as I continue to grow.  By blogging, I'm a member of the larger community of math teachers who want to improve math instruction for all students, not just their own.

1b.  Dan warns about blogging first and foremost for fame and readers; I like to think that I'm not.  However, I did recently get excited when my blog went over 3000 views...which is about 2995 more than I ever dreamed about!

1c.  Just yesterday, my curriculum director emailed our staff about an opportunity to hear a gentleman named George Couros speak.  Along with her invitation was a link to Mr. Couros' blog.  I followed the link and the very first post that I found was titled "Blogging is your job."  It made tons of sense to me; I recommend you read it.

2.  Desmos continues to make small yet game changing improvements to their products.  Also, we had students play Marbleslides in geometry during our equation of lines lessons.  Students LOVED it.  We had them work with partners to do as many challenges as they could during one class period.  100% engagement level each hour.

3.  My co-teacher, Jarrod, and I made a change in the logistics of our geometry classes.  We have been very happy with the results.  Read about those changes here.

4.  There has been a lot of cool happenings on Twitter -- too many to mention at once.  One I do want to mention is April Pforts (@aprilpfortsiowa) recently started to blog.  (https://iowamathblog.wordpress.com/)  I met April two years ago while doing some work with leaders from SD, ND, MT, and IA.  I'm excited to read her blog.  Congrats, April!  Search #MTBoS for other great resources.

4b.  I am sick and tired of the political garbage that takes over social media.  It's to the point that I steer away from Twitter and Facebook at certain times.  I can't wait until this election is over.

5.  Our district had a full day, all-staff inservice day a week ago.  We listened to a speaker named David LaRose.  His message was about PLCs and what effective PLCs look and feel like.  He was superb and I'm not very motivated to get PLCs up and running in our school district.

6.  I've tried to improve my communication with parents this year by sending parents a weekly newsletter via email.  I'm happy to say that I haven't missed a week yet!  The newsletter idea came from my child's 3rd grade teacher who sent out an email each week last year.  My newsletters are nothing out of the ordinary; they simply highlight some of the happenings and highlights from the week that was, and offers a glimpse of the week ahead.  I try to include dates of quizzes and tests.  I plan to ask parents for feedback at conferences next week.

Here's to a great second semester!

2017 SDCTM Conference Proposal

I just submitted a conference proposal for Jarrod and I to present at the SDCTM conference in Huron on February 3-4, 2017.  We are planning a two hour session where participants will explore the Desmos activities and activity builder features.

I held a Desmos training session earlier this summer at BHS, and since then Desmos has made some major changes and literally hundreds of new activities have been created.  I'm interested to see what else will change between now and February.

REMAST wrap up

A couple of weeks ago I presented a session about Desmos at the REMAST Conference in here Brookings, SD.  The presenter speaking before me was Matt Miller (@jmattmiller), author of "Ditch That Textbook".

I feel honored that Matt listened to my Desmos 101 talk, and also that he decided to take some of his famous sketch notes at the same time.  I would love to be able to sketch notes like this!

South Dakota Counts Instructor

Today begins my journey as an instructor for a class offered for graduate credit.  I am teaching a course titled ED 611: Algebraic Reasoning for K-12 Educators through the South Dakota Counts program.  I've experienced three summers of these type of classes as a student and I'm excited to be a part of the process again.

Nerves are present (like any "first day of school") but I am confident things will go well all week.  

Geometry Field Trip

This semester, we are having our geometry students complete a floor plan project.  Students were given a blueprint of (part of) a house and were required to find the area of the floor and the walls in each room.  We made some of the rooms a bit irregular to draw in more concepts than simply finding the area of a rectangle.

To increase the real-life element of the project, we also asked students to find prices of flooring and paint and calculate what it would cost to pay for the carpet / tile / vinyl and the paint.  Students needed to provide price quotes and samples of colors they would choose.

We didn't want students to simply to and look online for prices.  Instead, we took a field trip to Barrett's Design Center for one class period.  Students were able to see the various flooring and paint options, talk with the interior designers, and ask questions about our project.

Overall, our field trip was very successful.  A load of thanks goes to Angie and Cindy for helping us and allowing us to come and visit.  And how cool was their little wrap up speech advocating for math!

(I used to do a project similar to this one where students were asked to remodel their bedroom and one other room in their own house.  They needed to then calculate the actual cost based on what types of materials they would purchase.  I never had the chance to integrate a field trip into the project!)

Teach My Lesson - MTBos Week 4

The fourth and final week of the #MTBoS Blogging Initiative is here.  I am sitting at the South Dakota Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference, wrapping up my thoughts from the event.  My co-teacher Jarrod and I presented at two sessions yesterday.  The second was titled "Why You Need to Bring Desmos Into Your Classroom."  We found that there are a number of teachers who do not yet know about the Desmos Teacher site and the activities that can be found there.

Which leads me my version of "Teach My Lesson."  

If you're new to Desmos, do the following... go to student.desmos.com.  Enter code "5xy6".  Complete the activity.  This lesson actually follows a different lesson that I do that introduces students to transformations of functions.  (For that activity, enter code "xsnx".)

If you're already a teacher.desmos.com user, here are the links that you can use to customize these two activities.

Transformation of Functions

Standard Form of Quadratic Functions

Desmos has so much potential for exploring mathematics, especially ones algebraic in nature.  I have found that students gain a lot of ownership of the math involved in these activities.  It's important to have students reflect and summarize their discoveries as part of these lessons.

If you happen to use either of these, I'd love to hear feedback.  Best of luck!

My Favorite: Linear Regression & Movies

Week 2 of the #MTBoS challenge: "My Favorite".

There are many lessons and activities that I have that could qualify as "My Favorite", but since I haven't blogged about this one yet, I'll go with it.

For the past couple of years, I used an activity I found on Yummy Math to help apply linear regression to a real world context.  I modify the activity just a bit by changing some of the movies to some of my favorites.  (If you haven't check out Yummy Math yet, I'd recommend it.  A lot of the site is free, but I'd recommend paying the $20 per year for full access.  The best thing about Yummy Math is that they're always updating their activities.)

Using Desmos, it's very quick and easy to create regression equations.  Students are asked to find some of the data from their own favorite movies, which completely draws them into the activity.

There is a lot of opportunity for rich discussion in the activity.  Some examples of really great discussions I've had w/ this activity:

• Why are some movies way above or below the line of best fit?  What would cause that sort of behavior?
• How does inflation / release dates play a role in this data?
• Why do Disney animated movies tend to be below the line of best fit?
• Why are sequels typically below the line of best fit?
• Are most of the top-grossing films of all time (Titantic, Avatar, and now Star War 7) above the line of best fit?
• When looking at a series of films (ex: Fast & the Furious), why do some fall above the line while others fall below?

Lastly, I love the activity because it leaves a bit of a cliffhanger.  Each year I do this, I wait and see what is the #1 movie in America during the past weekend and include that as part of my data set.  This past year, it was Hotel Transylvania 2.  At the end of the activity, I have students write down their prediction for the total gross amount for that movie.  Of course, there is no right answer at the time since the movie is still in theaters.  So we wait and occasionally check on it throughout the semester.  When the dust settles, we look back and see which student was closest to correct and award a prize.  

Title	Opening Gross ($ in millions)	Total Gross ($ in millions)	Opening Date
The Avengers	207.438708	623.279547	5/4/12
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	158.074286	424.668047	11/22/13
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2	169.189427	381.011219	7/15/11
Jurassic World	208.806270	650.493056	6/12/15
The Sandlot	4.918712	32.434006	4/9/93
Toy Story 3	110.307189	415.004880	6/18/10
Dumb & Dumber	16.363442	127.175374	12/16/94
Frozen	67.391326	400.738009	11/22/13
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron	191.271109	458.924272	5/1/15
Major League	8.836265	49.797148	4/7/89
Hotel Transylvania 2	48.464322		9/25/15

Desmos Marble Slides: Parabolas

Desmos just released their newest set of activities on Tuesday, aptly named "Marbleslides".  I decided to use the last day before Christmas vacation to let my algebra 2 students give the Parabola challenges a try.  I forced students to work as pairs instead of having them work independently.  I have found that my room is very quiet when students work on Desmos activities by themselves.  I wanted more collaboration and thinking out loud; I wanted more noise.

It appears Desmos hit a home run with their latest release.  More than once I had students arguing about whose turn it was to run the controls.  Many students left class with a new addiction.

Desmos Activity Builder Part 2

In case you missed my first post 5 short weeks ago about Desmos Activity Builder, please feel free to check it out.

It appears as though Santa came early because this was on my wish list.  Great new via Twitter today:

We are now able to copy someone else's activity and customize it to make it fit our specific needs.

For example, we used this activity on rotations by Andrew Stadel in geometry class a few weeks ago.  I now have the ability to duplicate the activity and make small tweaks to fit the needs of my specific students.  I don't have to try to re-create the magic that Andrew already created, yet I now have the ability to put my personal spin on these activities.

One final thought:
This open sharing of resources that is taking place is so powerful.  I love it that the people at Desmos and anyone who shares their wonderful creations through Desmos are not concerned about getting paid or someone else copying their ideas.  Sites like teacherspayteachers.com have some great resources, but it bothers me when teachers aren't willing to share resources with each other without getting something ($$$) in return.  The folks sharing via Desmos are willing to share resources for others to use and potentially for others to improve.  It's such a different mindset when compared to those teachers willing to share but only if they get something in return.

Happy customizing in activity builder!

Using Desmos to find the quadratic model of a real-world image

Desmos is at it again...

Since I started using Desmos more regularly this summer, I have found that it is gradually replacing a number of my other math software options.  The latest instance happened when my algebra 2 students were finding examples of things that take the form of a parabola.

In the past, I have had students find an example of a parabola in their everyday lives and snap a picture of it.  I've seen images of everything from the McDonald's logo to a water fountain to a mug shot of someone's jaw line.  Then I would have students upload their images into Geometer's Sketchpad and construct a number of points along the parabola.  Here is an example...

After that, I would have the students enter the ordered pairs into a TI-84+ or TI-Nspire graphing calculator, find the regression equation, and go back to Sketchpad and graph the function on top of the image.  Again, an example:

Some years I would have students explore around with vertex form a bit to try to fit a quadratic model before we found the regression equation.  But it was a painfully long process to bounce back and forth between Sketchpad and graphing calculator.

This year, I decided to direct students to Desmos to compute the regression equation.  After all, we had used Desmos to find linear regression equations earlier in the year and all students had access to Desmos w/ our 1:1 laptops.  (Not all students would have a TI-84 or Nspire to use in years past.)

It turns out the students had a great idea. Why use Sketchpad to plot the points and graph the regression function?  Why not just use Desmos?  I loved the idea and it really simplified the process.

Students simply inserted their images into Desmos, plotted points on the parabola, created a table with their ordered pairs, and found the quadratic regression equation (& graph) all in one place.

Follow this link for an example (image shown below).

Better yet, using the sliders in Desmos is a breeze.  Simply insert an image of anything parabolic and have students fit the model using vertex form.

Un-structuring Word Problems

This year, I have the opportunity to teach two sections of advanced algebra 2.  My colleague, Todd, teaches the other five sections of advanced algebra 2.  Todd is an excellent educator and someone I have already learned a lot from.

We are both fans of Dan Meyer's TED talk and love the idea of un-structuring our math problems as much as possible.  In an attempt to force our students to think about what information is necessary to solve a problem, we've begun to modify a question or two each assignment in this way.


Here's a question found in a typical systems of equations lesson:

(c) Pearson Education 2015 Algebra 2

We give our students this problem instead:

*1.       You are considering renting a car from two different rental companies.  Write a function that shows the cost of renting from each company.  Which one should you choose?  Explain.

Our students are aware they do not have enough information to complete the task.  Not yet, anyway.
If we assigned this problem on a Monday, students would be expected to think about what information is important and necessary in order to correctly answer the problem.  On Tuesday, to start class, we give students 1 minute to ask anything they want about the problem.   The problem is then part of their homework for Tuesday night and is expected to finished by Wednesday.

It has been interesting to hear some of the questions students ask on problems like this one.  Often times, students ask for the necessary information very quickly and don't ask for anything unnecessary.  There have been times, however, that we get some interesting questions about things that have no effect on the problem.

Student Centered Advanced Algebra 2 Activities

I love it when students are active learners and are collaborating with one another.  I really love it when technology is involved.  The past two days of Advanced Algebra 2 have been a buffet of fun for me.

We have begun our unit on functions.  After a day of discussing topics such as mapping diagrams, function notation, domain and range, vertical line test, etc, we turned our attention to representing and modeling relationships with graphs.

On Wednesday, students analyzed distance - time graphs with a heavy thanks to this MARS MAP activity.  Students worked in groups of two to sort and match the graph, table, and story.

On Thursday, students completed the Desmos Water Line activity.  I have students reflect after doing Desmos activities, and here is what some of my students had to say today.

"It was a fun and simple way of looking at something that can be very complex."

"It made me think, and it was fun to create my own glass."

"It changed the way how I look at how water glasses fill up."



Responses like that are GLORY in its finest form.

I told students that I would take the most creative glasses and post pictures of them on Twitter.  We are hoping that @Desmos will retweet our post.  Time will tell if we were successful!

Here are some of the more creative glasses we had.

E.P. - 2nd Hour

O.D. - 2nd Hour

C.A. - 3rd Hour