When Math Gets Artsy.... Update!

In 2020, Covid-19 shut down our schools before I could take on another chance at one of my favorite projects. Check out my original blog post here. 

Then, in 2021, I had taken a job with an online school and didn't teach content that was applicable for this project. So again, I mourned the loss of another shot at this. 

Bring on 2022! The excitement and anticipation I had for this project was borderline insanity. I counted down the days until we could start all spring. I just knew that my group of students was going to absolutely crush it. A few changes to note from 2019 to 2022:

1. A more detailed attempt at a rubric. I wanted this project to be purposefully open ended with very little restrictions. Check out the 2022 rubric here: Desmos Art Project Rubric. Rubric writing is something I am still working hard to get better at. Students seemed to really understand the success criteria and I had very little confusion or questions arise about the rubric. 

2. We started the week long project with a full period of exploration in Desmos. I wanted to put out as many fires as possible before they started so they could really focus on the mathematics and the creativity could flow with out roadblocks. We covered all kinds of logistical tools and components in Desmos and I just let them explore and ask questions. This helped tremendously and I believe led to an increase in the quality of the projects turned in.

3. A Padlet for posting projects so that students could view each other's finished projects. They absolutely loved being able to see each other's projects and I do think that the fact that they were responsible for posting their project for others to see led to an increase in quality as well. The Padlet helped me stay organized and made for quick and easy sharing with colleagues and parents. 

So here it is, my 2022 Desmos Art Projects:

 2022 Desmos Art Projects Padlet

I could not possibly be more proud of my students. The work they put in and the amount of effort and grit they showed along the way to make the best possible version of the picture or image they could was beyond inspiring. 

4. After the project was over I asked them to complete a survey about the project and their experience. Here is the survey: 2022 Desmos Art Project Reflection. The results were almost as heartwarming and exciting as the projects for me. Here are a few direct student quotes from the survey: 

"I liked that creativity was important in this project which isn't the “usual” in math class, so that one thing i enjoyed."

"I liked the freedom and creativity and that there weren't really any rules that came with the project. It was easy but hard at the same time depending on what grade you wanted to get."

"I liked how challenging it was, some parts were harder to understand; especially the shading. I will say, I restarted like five times before I just stuck to a basic picture I knew I could create."

"I had a lot of fun figuring out how to move each line to match up with other lines. I was thinking about doing more for fun on my own."

"I enjoyed the process of moving around the different functions to perfect certain parts of my project."

"It was a fun way to review and get more practice on this units material."

Desmos Day of Exploration

 

I finally made a Desmos activity. It may not seem like that impressive of a feat to most people, but I have started and surrendered so many times. My teacher.desmos account is really a graveyard of whole hearted but half finished attempts. I never really knew whether it was a lack of desire or a lack of skill that prevented me from finishing the task but this week my inspiration to create the vision I had was through the roof and I was determined to make this work. 

And work it did. It was an incredible day. One of those days that feels almost illegal to not document or celebrate.

So cheers, to a completed Desmos activity and an instructional win full of student connections and exploration!

Students have been working with linear, quadratic, and absolute value functions with a focus on transformations from the parent function. Mix in a little systems of equations (graphing only right now) and here we are! I'll be honest, the actual creation of the activity was pretty easy. There are 4 challenges, each challenge with a clear set of requirements for the functions they had to write and a target intersection point. This was SUPER open ended which allowed for some rich comparison conversation and a lot of notice/wonder type whole class and group discussion. 

Teacher Dashboard View:

The really impactful part of this lesson was projecting the teacher dashboard view for students to see. There was such a wide variety of ways students completed each challenge and being able to quickly pull together different subsets of answers was really powerful.

Students were really engaged and motivated to figure out functions for each challenge. Creating the "need" for students to understand and use those transformations was really key. Even some of my more disengaged and less motivated students were finally asking me, "Hey Mrs. Bell, how do I make this thing go to the right? I am too far left." BEAUTIFUL... so let's talk about everything we've learned the last two weeks.... Better late than never! Maybe they just needed an actual reason to move their dang parabolas around finally!

Here are some awesome examples of each challenge and the functions students' created.

Student Work Challenge #1: 

Student Work Challenge #2: 

Student Work Challenge #3: 

Student Work Challenge #4:

Been hesitant to finally create that Desmos activity? Here is your push to do it. New things are hard. After a decade of teaching and plenty of Desmos specific training, I finally did it. Now is always the best time to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and grow as educators!