Desmos Activity Builder - a Game Changer for the Classroom
Authors: Jessica Bernards & Wendy Fresh
A couple of years ago, we sat at our college’s Fall in-service and were told that the low pass rates in mathematics classes needed to improve. The college was on a mission to make these improvements. We walked away wondering how we could make changes to our courses in classes filled with students who in many cases didn’t want to be there. Should we follow them home to make sure they were doing their homework? That’s probably not realistic.
“We needed to switch things up and create activities for the student to do, to engage them in learning.”
Fortunately for us, our dean has been supportive of us attending national math conferences. It was at these conferences that the answer began to show itself. Instead of perfecting our lectures and us being the active ones, we needed to switch things up and create activities for the students to do to engage them in the learning. In fact, the evidence is so strong in supporting the positive effects of active learning techniques in mathematics and science courses that Freeman, et.al, made the statement in their 2014 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) article that “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering and mathematics.”
Since that time, we have been on the hunt for activities to bring into our math classroom that are engaging and effective. One of our favorites is the Desmos Activity Builder.
Desmos.com has been around since 2011. It first began as an advanced free graphing calculator website, but a few years ago added Desmos Activity Builder which provides online, interactive Desmos-based activities. As Desmos states “A Desmos Class Activity is essentially a sequence of screens, each with a different task, prompt, or question.”
For example, in the Function Marbleslide activity image on the right, students are challenged to transform a function so that when a purple marble drops it will go through the yellow stars. This gamification aspect motivates students and helps them to learn the math concepts in a fun and competitive way.
In addition, after going through and exploring concepts, students have the opportunity to write in their own words their conclusions to be shared with the class.
We love Desmos activity builder. It is easy to use for both the instructor and the student.
Instructors can quickly create their own activities or choose one from the huge library of pre-built activities. Once created, the instructor can monitor student progress by using the teacher dashboard to see student responses in real time. This “just in time” approach allows the teacher to clear up misconceptions as they occur.
For the student, this platform takes what used to be a boring, static worksheet and changes it into a dynamic and engaging challenge. By investigating relationships between graphs and algebraic representations of functions, our students learn through exploration. Students come to discoveries on their own, thereby taking ownership over the concepts which helps them to gain an understanding that is much deeper than what they previously received through traditional rote memorization.
Have changes like these made a difference in our pass rates? YES! Over a 3-year period, we have had a 17% increase in pass rates. Not only that, but because our students are more engaged during class, they feel part of an inclusive community that they want to attend.
For a list of our favorite activities as well as our Desmos tips and Tricks click HERE. Additionally, we will be talking more in depth about Desmos activity builder and several other free resources to bring into your classroom in our upcoming workshop, Active Learning + Immediate Feedback = Success in Math Classes.
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