Introduction To Using Desmos For Teaching Mathematics By MEI: A Review - By Ben Wright
As part of the CPD (Continuing Professional Development) series, the Maths Scholars had the opportunity to attend a webinar on using Desmos, led by Tom Button and Natalie Vernon from the Mathematics Education Innovation (MEI).
I first encountered Desmos during my A levels when I used it for developing my own understanding of functions. I found it incredibly useful for this purpose but I was not aware of its extensive capabilities until the recent webinar.
After a brief refresher on the basics of Desmos, we explored how it can enhance students' understanding of mathematical concepts through dynamic lines and curves. Desmos offers a user-friendly slider functionality that, among other uses, allows teachers to show how the equation of a line changes as the y-intercept varies. Tom emphasised that the effectiveness of Desmos in teaching lies in how questions are structured to guide students’ thinking, rather than relying solely on the platform’s advanced features. For example, prompts like “When I change ..., how does it move and why?” and “If I change ..., how will it move?” encourage students to think critically about mathematical relationships.
For me, the most interesting part of the webinar was on Desmos’ use in teaching probability and statistics, as this wasn’t a functionality I had previously considered.
We looked at two data sets containing temperature data from July 2022 and 2023. To visualise these data sets, we constructed a box plot and discussed some of the features we may want to draw out from students like the difference in the dispersion of the two data sets. We also discussed the ease with which Desmos can show bivariate data sets and I particularly liked the regression line feature that can be used to prompt a class discussion about models and the ‘line of best fit’.
Finally, we were shown by Tom how Desmos can be used to show a probability trial with the fair six-sided die example. The number of trials can be changed and the experiment can be run multiple times. It was noted that the class may need to be convinced that the trial set up in Desmos is equivalent to the physical experiment of rolling a fair six-sided die. But once they are comfortable with this, properties of probability can be illustrated in a neat visual way.
Overall, the webinar was incredibly valuable, and I look forward to integrating Desmos into my classroom teaching to enhance my pedagogical practice through technology.
By Ben Wright
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