Talk:Julie Bensley's Mini-Course: Utilizing Desmos Activity Builder in the Mathematics Classroom

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Mini Course Evaluation of Desmos -- McintyreETAP623 (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2016 (EST) -- McintyreETAP623 (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2016 (EST)

Hi Julie,

1. Reaction to Unit 1

The set up for unit 1, Benefits of Utilizing Desmos and Desmos Activity Builder is very organized and clear. The unit covered all objectives and my understanding of what the Desmos website offers to students and teachers. The website is organized for grades in middle school through high school and has different digital interactive activities that students can work on. The unit also showed pictures that discuss sample activities and on the website it has directions on how to complete these activities with a partner or individually. After signing up for an account at the Desmos website and reviewing unit 1, I now know what the Desmos website offers and some of the digital interactive activities they have for teacher and student learning.

2. Learning Process for Unit 1

“Students love the internet because it’s a social place to share and create” (Schwartz, website).Using this website, do students already have to be familiar and be introduced to the specific math topics before using this website such as, how to solve a linear equation? Also, is there a tutorial explaining how to use the Desmos graphing calculator?

I liked how you can save your work and go back to make adjustments later on the website. There are also examples of linear equations that are interactive and students have the opportunity to create their very own equations on the website which provides instruction for the participants to gain knowledge on the particular math topic.

In the website, I think it’s a great idea that the teacher is able to track where the student is in the Desmos activity and it enhances the learner’s ability to see if a student needs more support. It’s a wonderful interactive tool for sharing individual work and creating copies of graphs for your classroom. The article related very well to the unit 1 and shares the benefits and some concerns the website might have such as, some teachers are concerned with Desmos and how it is making graphing too easy for students because it does too much for them.

Reference:

K. Schwartz. (2016, April 6) Could this digital math tool change instruction for the better? [Web log comment] Retrieved from: https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/04/06/could-this-digital-math-tool-change-instruction-for-the-better/

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