{{custom.firstName}} - you have such a fantastic opportunity on this screen of Sand Dollar Search. Don't miss out!
In one of the biggest plot twists of middle school mathematics, we reveal to students that the coordinate plane extends out to positive and negative numbers, just like the number line. Then we ask students to describe the location of a new sand dollar.
Because they are early in their learning, I was expecting to see answers that were imprecise and even incorrect—and that’s exactly what I got!
Several responses:
It is 3 on the y, and -4 on the x.
It's 6 spaces away from the sand dollar.
The sand dollar is in the up left box, and it's on (4, 2).
Tell me about a different world.
In these moments, you can help students understand that their incorrect and imprecise answers make sense, that they offer us a conceptual bridge toward correct answers.
Look at the student's response in the image above: "It's 6 spaces away from the sand dollar."
Consider just interpreting their thinking here, rather than evaluating it. Similar to how later screens will automatically interpret a student's coordinates, you can interpret a student's instructions and tell them that "In a different world, if the sand dollar was right here, you'd be correct! How do you want to modify your response?"
This is a fantastic opportunity for you to help students learn more about math and more about the value of their thinking—even when it's incorrect or imprecise—and I hope you and your students enjoy it.
Dan & the Desmos Classroom Team
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