Today, I gave a PD session covering Desmos. Compared to last year, I had less time (only 50 minutes) and more teachers (about 30) for my session. I was excited to see an increase of teachers interested in learning more about Desmos.
I had a google form for teachers to fill out as they entered so I could get an idea of the experience level of the class. I really did not know what to expect as far as how many teachers were already using Desmos. About 50% of the teachers were not using Desmos at all. With this in mind, I really wanted teachers to leave my session with a basic understanding of the Desmos web site set up (calculator vs activities) while being exposed to as many of the great features as possible. I also wanted them to get both a student and teacher perspective as they start to envision how Desmos could fit into their own classroom.
After the survey, teachers jumped into an activity. I chose "Card Sort: Linear Systems" by Michael Fenton because it demonstrates dragging a point, sketching, and card sorts. Many of the teachers who used Desmos last year were not aware of the card sort. I displayed the teacher screen as they worked so they could start thinking about their role as the teacher when their students would be completing an activity.
Since so many teachers were not using Desmos already, I gave them a brief history and overview after they completed the Card Sort activity. We quickly looked at the calculator before focusing on the activities from the student perspective and then the teacher perspective. There were some good questions and conversations about how to display student work to start class conversations.
Some teachers were looking for a way to create answer keys and grade student work quickly. I tried to emphasize that the power of Desmos activities is that it provides students with a way to investigate and explore topics in the beginning of a lesson. It also serves as a great formative assessment tool. I realized where some teachers see the inability to give students instant feedback as a weakness of Desmos activities, I see it as a strength. If a student answers a question and immediately knows whether they got it right or wrong, they are done with that problem. Desmos activities give the teacher the opportunity to revisit the problem with the class while students are still invested in the problem. The teacher can lead the class to a consensus by looking at all the student responses. Students are able to confirm or correct each other's work instead of the teacher. This set up is a much more powerful way to learn.
After sharing a few of my favorite activities and going through how to search, copy, and edit activities, I made my biggest mistake for the session. With about 10-15 minutes left in the session, I encouraged teachers to either search and explore activities specific to their classes or try out the scavenger hunts to better familiarize themselves with Desmos. I was going to stop them with a couple minutes left to take any remaining questions and wrap everything up. Many of the teachers interpreted this instruction as the session was over. They chose to take an early lunch as my session was the last one before our break. As with many of my lessons with students, I did not have good closure for my lesson!
After reflecting, I think I did not manage our time appropriately. A teacher new to Desmos might be overwhelmed with all the new information and not want to commit to diving into the site themselves with only 10 minutes left. I also think I gave them too many options without enough structure. In the future, I might ask that everyone find one activity to share in a google doc. I could have the google doc separated by subjects as well. We could walk through different challenges together and share as we go.
While there are things I will change in future sessions, I think overall the session went well and many teachers left excited about Desmos.
Please let me know of any suggestions you might have!
Here is the link to my presentation: Creating a Student Centered Classroom Through Desmos
