Could the Future of Math Education be Desmos?

By Sydney Stapleton

This past week our class created Desmos activities, which are digital mathematical experiences that aid students’ learning by modeling and using multiple representations to show concepts. While exploring Desmos to make an activity, I am amazed at the tools and abilities it offers to help teachers visualize the learning concepts for their students.

Desmos was started by a Yale math and physics major and now CEO, Eli Luberoff. Like most, if not all, secondary students, Eli grew up utilizing a graphing calculator. With the wave of technology in the world, it makes sense that we would see people create software that can do the graphing on a bigger screen, like a computer. Desmos now has not only a graphing calculator tool, but a scientific calculator, four-function calculator, matrix calculator, geometry tool, and test practice as well. SInce Desmos is specifically for educational purposes, it strives, “to build a world where every student learns math and loves learning math, where a student’s access to the power and beauty of math doesn't depend on their place of birth, race, ethnicity, gender, or any other aspect of their identity” (“About Us”). Desmos holds strong principles in creating equity for all learners. As the software and team of people expand, Desmos works hard to listen to its users to keep bettering the free service for everyone.

Desmos activities are a great resource for formative or summative assessments. There are activities geared toward helping students self-teach a lesson or introduce the topic based on their previous knowledge. Desmos activities can also be purely used for students to practice, as a great at-home resource to assist homework assignments. Teachers can create activities applying minimal to more complex coding and Desmos graphs. A benefit of using code is that the teacher can set up a code to provide students immediate feedback. Another significant benefit for teachers is that you can assign pre-made activities that contain a more professional feel. This ability is great if a teacher finishes a lesson early and wants students to stay productive and practice the concepts.

The newest addition to the Desmos software is a sixth through eighth-grade Algebra I curriculum. This curriculum will be fully available to schools in 2022-2023. This curriculum includes daily Desmos activities ranging from first-day introductions, exit tickets, and unit assessments.

Our country had to adapt and come up with solutions to online teaching during this pandemic. Online schools or flipped classrooms are definite candidates to implement the Desmos curriculum. With more and more schools emphasizing technology in the classroom and quickly increasing amounts of one-to-one districts, Desmos’ software in addition to the Algebra I curriculum has the potential to be instrumental in a shift in mathe education. Depending on the magnitude of implementation that Desmos’ curriculum gets, there may be more grades of curriculum available in the future. The possibility of using Desmos to teach all students mathematics across the country is an interesting concept to ponder.

Source:

“About Us.” Desmos, https://www.desmos.com/about.