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Third DESMOS activity

On March 11th,  DESMOS activity:

Two Truths and a Lie: Parabolas was given.

14 students participated, this activity took 30 minutes.

In this DESMOS activity students were able to master important features of a parabola such as Vertex, concavity, X-intercepts, Y-intercepts,  and Axis of Symmetry. Students were given 3 statements about the graph of a given Parabola, two statements were true and one was false, Students had to identify the false statement and justify why the statement was false in their own words. Next, students were asked to create their own challenge, they were asked to post three statements about a Parabola that they constructed on their own, once they finished, after going over their own challenge they were asked to post their challenge for their class mates to go trough, it was very interesting to see how students verified the validity of the statements that their classmates posted, this activity definitely, help students to have a much better understanding of important features of a parabola and to be able to discuss it with their classmates and myself.

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Second DESMOS activity

On February 19th,  DESMOS activity:

Transforming Functions was given.

12 students participated, this activity took 30 minutes.

In this DESMOS activity students were able to visualize how, in general,  the graph of function changes, under rigid and none-rigid transformations. For all questions during the activity the function was expressed as f(x), which helped students to understand that these  transformations can be applied to any function whatsoever. As I walked around helping students, I noticed that the counterintuitive nature of “horizontal shifts” was better understood thanks to the “visualization” of what they posting. This time, students were able to check if what they posted was right or wrong as well as what their classmates were posting, this helped them, in most cases, to understand the nature of their mistakes, correct them and post again.  “mistakes are part of the learning process” I often said to encourage students to finish with the activity. the “interactive visualization” of this  DESMOS activity, in my opinion, brings clarity and helps students “make sense” of what is explained in class. Through out the activity I asked students “what if… ” questions to help them figure out the answers reasoning.

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First DESMOS activity

On February 5th,  DESMOS activity:

Domain and Range Practice was given.

16 students participated, this activity took 30 minutes.

This DESMOS activity was not graded, and served to help my students understand and master the idea of Domain and Range of a Function associated to the graph of the Function, via vertical and horizontal strips. As students went through the activity, the answers posted were shared, this allowed students to make sure they were in the right track, I provided help and hints when students needed it. Active learning was applied in this activity, via questioning, discussion,  and review of the topic: The Domain and Range of a Function. I noticed, students were able to clarify misconceptions and connect ideas via the visualization of this activity, in general, the learning process was enhanced.

 

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Proposal

I want to apply Active learning via Desmos activities for the Precalculus class that I will teach in spring 2020. I will teach this class at room N550 which comes equipped with computers for each student, this will facilitate the implementation of Desmos activities.

I will prepare worksheets and activities, similar to the ones we were given throughout our meetings using my Desmos account and will give them to my student throughout the Spring 2020 semester.

At the end of the semester I will compare the performance of the students based on

Fall 2019 (Using traditional Teaching) versus Spring 2020 (Using Active Learning via Desmos activities).

I will post the results of this comparison on my website at https://openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu/

Under “Projects” for all of us to share and reflect on it.

On Friday December 6 I will present the following Desmos activity as an example.

https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/569eba68560ed8a709fd2c62#preview/05df2506-e195-4bb1-8386-143923f0e022

This DESMOS activity helps students to understand how to find the Domain and Range of a function when the graph of the function is given.

Best,

Ivan Retamoso