The Word about Desmos is Getting Around

The ISTE 2016 conference is currently taking place in Denver, and until today I have never heard of the ISTE conference.  It looks like I need to take a long look into this one for the future.

Based on what I'm finding on Twitter tonight, two gentlemen (Bob & Jedidiah) presented a session on Desmos today.  Two reasons for this blog post:

1. It amazes me what social media is doing to my personal professional development.

2. The word about Desmos is spreading like wildfire.

Last November, my colleague Jarrod and I attended the NCTM regional conference in Minneapolis.  We crudely estimated that easily more than half of people we talked to had never heard of Desmos (or simply thought that it was only an online graphing calculator).

That led us to feel the need to start spreading the word around our region.  This February, Jarrod and I presented a session on Desmos at the SDCTM conference.  Anywhere from 25-40 people attended our session.  Once again, the theme was many had never heard about Desmos or the Desmos teacher website.

Based on what took place in Denver today via Twitter, another batch of math educators were exposed to Desmos and here is what some had to say:

I couldn't agree with these folks more.  The word is out.  Desmos is revolutionizing the way we can engage students in our math classrooms.  I can't wait to see what 2016-2017 has in store for math education!

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!)

One Good Thing Part 2

Just a quick post here... the school year is cruising along.

Today, something happened that doesn't often occur for me.  I was able to clear out my Outlook inbox!

Always a happy day when the inbox is clear!

Pear Deck - Attempt #1

I'm in the process of writing my first lesson that I plan to use Pear Deck (Geometry, section 7.2 - introduction to similar figures).  As I'm planning, Andrew Stadel's blog pops up with this overview.  This whole Twitter / blogging / MTBoS universe is pretty amazing.

Since I'm an infant yet at using Pear Deck, I'm curious to hear more about its versatility and specific ways others are using it.  I hope to report back tomorrow with how things went.

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!

Better Questions

I know, I know.  Week 3 of the 2016 Blogging Initiative has long come and gone.  It's nearly the end of week 4!  I apologize for the tardiness.

I love the topic of "Better Questions" not only because the types of questions you ask can really dictate the type of classroom and style of teaching you have, but also because I need to continue to grow in the area of questioning.  Blogging about questioning will help me re-focus on the types of questions I'm asking my students.

This past fall, I presented a training module to HS / MS math teachers that focused on Effective Questioning.  The module brings to light the four levels of questions defined in NCTM's Principles to Actions (2014).

Question Type		Description
1	Gathering Information	Students recall facts, definitions, or procedures.
2	Probing Thinking	Students explain, elaborate, or clarify their thinking, including articulating the steps in solution methods or the completion of a task.
3	Making the Mathematics Visible	Students discuss mathematical structures and make connections among mathematical ideas and relationships.
4	Encouraging reflection and justification	Students reveal deeper understanding of their reasoning and actions, including making an argument for the validity of their work.

I've set the goal of asking more level 3 and 4 in my classroom, including on assessments.  These types of questions are sometimes tricky to create and grade.  Here is an example of a question that I asked my algebra 2 students.

I consider this a level 3 question due to asking students to make connections between the factors, solutions, and zeros on the graph.

Some example of student work:

Student 1: Excellent.

Student 2: This student did not understand the connection between the zeros of the graph and solutions of the equation.