Top Tip No. 4: Become a detective for student brilliance.

 

Hi {{custom.firstName}},

 

Here’s some advice that many expert Desmos teachers still work on daily. The teachers who have reported the most success with this program have seen themselves as detectives for student brilliance.

 

It’s easy for me to ask students a question and hold up my own answer, or the answer from a student who looks like me, as the standard for brilliance. But we build learning and relationships when we assume all of our students have something brilliant to offer and then work hard to find and celebrate that brilliance.

What does it look like in the next lesson?

 

On Screen 5 in Are They the Same, we ask students to identify which of the shapes above are congruent to A. In a sample of 1,000 students, the most common wrong response was students selecting E and E alone as congruent to A.

 

Your initial response might be frustration: “They missed D and B, which are clearly congruent as well!” But try to figure out the very smart reasoning a student might have for just choosing E. Name it in front of the class as very smart. And then help students develop their thinking about congruence a little further:

 

“In a world where congruence means only rotations or translations, E would be exactly right. Love that thinking. But reflections are legal! They produce shapes we call congruent as well. So which other shapes might be congruent too?”

 

That’s one way you can develop a student’s sense of mathematics and of themselves as a mathematician in this math program.

 

Dan & the Desmos Classroom Team

 

PS. Please give us feedback on the last lesson.

 

Use the feedback form or just click your answer below then click "Submit" on the form!

 

How likely is it that you would recommend this lesson to a friend or colleague?

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Great advice from other teachers.

 

Baltimore, MD

In two of my classes, we finished the lesson a little early, which hasn't happened yet. 

Vancouver, WA

Great lesson that does not need more than 20 minutes. Students got the idea really quick.

Toronto, Ontario

I would suggest that it's okay to let students know that the idea of slide 7 is extra and that not everyone needs to do it. Explain how the purpose of slide 7 is a challenge for those who have made it there early.

Previous Emails

 

Top Tip No. 1: Nobody needs to finish everything.
Top Tip No. 2: Catch and release.
Top Tip No. 3: With the great power of pausing comes great responsibility.