Teaching with Desmos

Overview

Unlock the power of Desmos in your classroom ...

Desmos is a free suite of online mathematics tools. Two big highlights of this suite are the graphing software and the activities. Desmos Activities offer highly engaging ways to interact with students both face to face and remotely. In this course we will look at how the effective use of Desmos can help to deepen students’ understanding of mathematics at both GCSE and A level.

This series of sessions will support you with learning how to use the graphing calculator, the extensive set of pre-made activities and how to create or personalise your own activities.

Desmos is a very easy-to-use tool that will help you to integrate the use of technology into both your GCSE and A level mathematics lessons. This course will take you from a complete introduction to advanced techniques with bite-sized regular sessions.

Aims

• To develop your skills when using the Desmos graphing calculator
• To explore the use and creation of Desmos activities including refining activities using computational layer
• To consider effective strategies for using the graphing calculator and Desmos activities in GCSE and A level Mathematics

Who will benefit from attending?

This session is ideal for all teachers of GCSE or A level Mathematics who want to make greater use of technology in their teaching. Please join us to see how easy it is to use Desmos.

Absolute beginners to Desmos are welcome to the first session - no prior knowledge or experience will be assumed.

Subsequent sessions will rely on the content from earlier sessions.

Presenters

Natalie Vernon

A level Maths Professional Development Coordinator

‌ @NatalieV_MEI

Sarah Denison

Maths Education Support Leader

‌ @SarahDenisonMEI

Content

• Introduction to Desmos - using the graphing calculator
• Introduction to Desmos Activities
• Use of activity builder
• Advanced use of the graphing calculator
• Desmos Activities: getting started with computation layer
• Using Desmos for statistics

All sessions will take place online from 4.30pm-6pm.

Materials and Equipment

Delegates will be expected to join this session via an internet-connected computer or tablet. Although Desmos can be used on smartphones the screen-size is too small to make effective use of some of the Desmos Activities.

Other Information

The online sessions will take place via a Zoom webinar and be recorded. Recordings will be made available to all teachers enrolled.

Eligibility

Due to the way we are funded, this course is only available to teachers in state-funded schools and colleges in England. Applications from those teaching GCSE or A level Mathematics in other institutions will be considered if there is capacity. This course is only open to teachers working in schools or colleges in the UK.

Study Schedule

All sessions will take place online from 4.30pm-6pm.