What an incredibly insightful analysis of the interaction of technology and deep learning! I recommend that this be shared in math departments everywhere!
Robin, I've already posted this on the CMP teacher discussion page on FB. Congratulations on a well-written addition to mathematical pedagogy. You're awesome (always were!)!
I'm teaching calculus at a community college this semester. I think I'm going to assign the Desmos ball drop activity for students to work on. Then have them read this before having a discussion about the difference between completing assignments and learning by doing.
So much experience and thoughtful reflection here. Thank you for writing and sharing this! You write about where I want to bring my classroom and it sounds like you are ahead on that path/journey. I'm right there with you though on observing that there's been a lot of clicking without as much thought and retention (from some, not all) students. We use Desmos/Amplify as well, but I'd love to integrate more whiteboard writing. How much whiteboard space do you give each group of three? Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. Thanks again for documenting and sharing your thoughts and process.
I put two groups on a whiteboard. Some whiteboards are smaller than others but the students make do. If you don't have many whiteboards. WipeBooks makes poster size white boards that aren't super expensive but are more of a temporary fix.
Thank you again for all your replies and taking the time to answer my questions. Update: I've been using the cards to assign random groups, putting two groups to a whiteboard, and it's good -- I can see my students making progress. Sometimes there is card swapping like you warned. Today, I asked to see student's cards as soon as they drew one.
Grateful to you for sharing this thoughtful reflection! 2 questions I am curious about here. How have students reacted to the instruction to pause and reflect between attempts? And are there any strategies or framing you have found successful in inspiring the students to engage with the cognitive load that the slowing down requires?
I've been thinking about this dilemma as well, but from the edTech founder perspective. Our platform helps turn class material into study questions to review and we've been constantly experimenting and contemplating where to place the reflections to review your mistakes and how to orchestrate them. Wanting to somehow guide the students and make them more likely to reflect and dig deeper on the gaps in their understanding, but also not wanting to take away the thinking required for the reflections to be effective.
And your writing on the gamification and experience of the spelling game your son was playing is super salient. One tricky hurdle I've run into in trying to make learning tools that are effective is that it's much easier to measure engagement at scale (how often they do the supposedly valuable thing), than the actual learning outcomes
The pause and reflect is tricky because individually students aren’t going to like it. But when they are with others and can write out thoughts in the whiteboard they will do it. Especially if they are in groups of two or three with only one device. This forces them to talk. If you haven’t already please read my latest article. It has my thoughts on how to get students thinking while using digital interactives. https://robinkubasiak.substack.com/p/digital-interactives-do-they-inspire
I'm seeing similar issues to what you describe. Here's where I'm struggling.
A big chunk of my students do fine with digital activities. Maybe 40% I don't have any real complaints with their engagement.
Another 30% rush and struggle to slow down and think about what they're doing but they're coachable and I think that with a lot of work I could get them to a place where they are learning a lot from digital activities.
Then the final 30%... They rush through or give up at the first sign of difficulty. They're often trying to play games when I'm not looking. It feels like a long road to get them to a place where they're learning. I'm sure it's possible. But is it worth all that effort? Am I better off limiting digital tools to short, focused chunks and doing as much as possible with pen and paper, or whiteboard and marker? I don't know. It feels like a ton of effort, and I'm becoming more skeptical it's worth that effort.
I hear you. For many years I’ve been the biggest cheerleader for Desmos and other digital interactives. I never thought I would say to not use them. But …. I like how my students interact with Desmos at the whiteboards and sometimes individually. But I find myself very selective when choosing whether to use technology or not.
How did you create (or learn to create) the animations in "Adding Integers Splat!!!"? Like the boot dropping down and the spider moving around, or the animated arrows? I tried copying your activity to edit it to see if I could see the computation layer of code, but I can't see it. Anyhow, nice work on the animations and the activity! Thanks for sharing it. I've bookmarked it as an activity for a day when I need a sub.
Thanks I'm glad you like it. The animations aren't in the computation layer. the CL just takes the input numbers from the table and puts them in the graph. The animations are in the graphing calculator. Basically I made a point that moves around and attached the pictures to it. You can adjust the opacity on the images to appear with certain conditions. Here is a simple graph on how to animate a point with a timer T. https://www.desmos.com/calculator/bw7nxpgmuc
What an incredibly insightful analysis of the interaction of technology and deep learning! I recommend that this be shared in math departments everywhere!
Robin, I've already posted this on the CMP teacher discussion page on FB. Congratulations on a well-written addition to mathematical pedagogy. You're awesome (always were!)!
Thank you!!
I'm teaching calculus at a community college this semester. I think I'm going to assign the Desmos ball drop activity for students to work on. Then have them read this before having a discussion about the difference between completing assignments and learning by doing.
I would love to hear how this went!
So much experience and thoughtful reflection here. Thank you for writing and sharing this! You write about where I want to bring my classroom and it sounds like you are ahead on that path/journey. I'm right there with you though on observing that there's been a lot of clicking without as much thought and retention (from some, not all) students. We use Desmos/Amplify as well, but I'd love to integrate more whiteboard writing. How much whiteboard space do you give each group of three? Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. Thanks again for documenting and sharing your thoughts and process.
I put two groups on a whiteboard. Some whiteboards are smaller than others but the students make do. If you don't have many whiteboards. WipeBooks makes poster size white boards that aren't super expensive but are more of a temporary fix.
Thank you again for all your replies and taking the time to answer my questions. Update: I've been using the cards to assign random groups, putting two groups to a whiteboard, and it's good -- I can see my students making progress. Sometimes there is card swapping like you warned. Today, I asked to see student's cards as soon as they drew one.
Grateful to you for sharing this thoughtful reflection! 2 questions I am curious about here. How have students reacted to the instruction to pause and reflect between attempts? And are there any strategies or framing you have found successful in inspiring the students to engage with the cognitive load that the slowing down requires?
I've been thinking about this dilemma as well, but from the edTech founder perspective. Our platform helps turn class material into study questions to review and we've been constantly experimenting and contemplating where to place the reflections to review your mistakes and how to orchestrate them. Wanting to somehow guide the students and make them more likely to reflect and dig deeper on the gaps in their understanding, but also not wanting to take away the thinking required for the reflections to be effective.
And your writing on the gamification and experience of the spelling game your son was playing is super salient. One tricky hurdle I've run into in trying to make learning tools that are effective is that it's much easier to measure engagement at scale (how often they do the supposedly valuable thing), than the actual learning outcomes
Thanks again for putting this writing out!😊
The pause and reflect is tricky because individually students aren’t going to like it. But when they are with others and can write out thoughts in the whiteboard they will do it. Especially if they are in groups of two or three with only one device. This forces them to talk. If you haven’t already please read my latest article. It has my thoughts on how to get students thinking while using digital interactives. https://robinkubasiak.substack.com/p/digital-interactives-do-they-inspire
Thank you for sharing this! Forgot to let you know at the time, but the other article you shared was great additional context
I'm seeing similar issues to what you describe. Here's where I'm struggling.
A big chunk of my students do fine with digital activities. Maybe 40% I don't have any real complaints with their engagement.
Another 30% rush and struggle to slow down and think about what they're doing but they're coachable and I think that with a lot of work I could get them to a place where they are learning a lot from digital activities.
Then the final 30%... They rush through or give up at the first sign of difficulty. They're often trying to play games when I'm not looking. It feels like a long road to get them to a place where they're learning. I'm sure it's possible. But is it worth all that effort? Am I better off limiting digital tools to short, focused chunks and doing as much as possible with pen and paper, or whiteboard and marker? I don't know. It feels like a ton of effort, and I'm becoming more skeptical it's worth that effort.
I hear you. For many years I’ve been the biggest cheerleader for Desmos and other digital interactives. I never thought I would say to not use them. But …. I like how my students interact with Desmos at the whiteboards and sometimes individually. But I find myself very selective when choosing whether to use technology or not.
How did you create (or learn to create) the animations in "Adding Integers Splat!!!"? Like the boot dropping down and the spider moving around, or the animated arrows? I tried copying your activity to edit it to see if I could see the computation layer of code, but I can't see it. Anyhow, nice work on the animations and the activity! Thanks for sharing it. I've bookmarked it as an activity for a day when I need a sub.
Thanks I'm glad you like it. The animations aren't in the computation layer. the CL just takes the input numbers from the table and puts them in the graph. The animations are in the graphing calculator. Basically I made a point that moves around and attached the pictures to it. You can adjust the opacity on the images to appear with certain conditions. Here is a simple graph on how to animate a point with a timer T. https://www.desmos.com/calculator/bw7nxpgmuc