Top Tip #2: Catch and release.
Hi {{custom.firstName}}, the first time you use the Desmos teacher dashboard, it’ll feel like your first time driving a car, back when you could change lanes or change speed but not both at the same time. It’ll be a moment to celebrate when you can use teacher pacing without much effort. At that point, focus on purposeful use of teacher pacing.
Instead of saying, “Okay, I’m now going to pace you to Screens 4–6—go for it,” understand that you have caught everyone’s attention for a brief moment, which means you can introduce Screens 4–6 in ways that invite more student thinking rather than less.
What does it look like in the next lesson?
In Make It Scale, consider pacing to Screens 2–4 and pausing the class. Before unpausing the class, while you’ve caught your students’ attention, consider setting up the main task: “You’re going to pick a shape and then it’s up to you to freehand sketch a scaled copy.” Then release them. That’s a concise, comprehensible, and catchy invitation.
Before pacing to Screens 5–9, catch your students’ attention by telling them, “You all said it was hard to sketch freehand. Let’s see what you can do with … [switch to the next screen] … a grid!
The better your students understand the main task of the lesson and the more it interests them, the more energy and thought they’ll offer you and their classmates.
Dan & the Desmos Classroom Team
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Previous Emails
Top Tip #1: Nobody needs to finish everything.
