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NSD K-12 Math Newsletter

Desmos gingerbread man


December 2019

Vol. 7, Issue 5

In This Issue

 

Desmos Collections


Desmos has upgraded their collections, including a whole bunch of middle school statistics activities. Here are a few highlights.


  Elementary Grades

These activities are designed for third- to fifth-grade classrooms, or anyplace where students would benefit from playful exploration of these ideas.

  Intro to the Coordinate Plane

This collection includes activities designed for a wide range of students, from upper elementary to middle school and beyond.

  Middle School Statistics

These activities are designed for middle school classrooms where students are studying single-variable statistics, including measures of center and spread.

  The Power of Expressions

These activities are designed for middle school students who are studying early ideas of symbolic algebra.

  Transforming Shapes

These activities are designed for middle school or geometry students who are studying congruence and transformations of geometric figures in the plane.

  Transforming Functions

These activities are designed for algebra or precalculus students studying function families and the ways in which new functions are derived from existing ones.

  Conics

The activities in this collection are designed for Algebra 2 or precalculus students studying conic sections.

 

Teacher-Created Collections

Teachers also have the ability to create their own collections and share them with each other. Here are a few teacher-created collections you may wish to explore: If you are looking for activities on a particular topic or concept, let me know and I can share or help you find something that meets your students' needs.

Desmos PD and Support 


Desmos Webinars

Want to learn more about Desmos? The Desmos Team is hosting a December webinar series.
  1. Missed the first webinar? Watch it here:
    Creative Mathematics: Introduction to the Desmos Graphing Calculator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbya2DBubN8
  2. The second webinar in the series, “The Connected Classroom: Introduction to Desmos Activities” will be available soon.
    Register for the webinar to access the recording when available.
    Find out what it takes to edit existing activities and to build your own from scratch. You'll learn about the Desmos Activity Builder, our design principles for engaging math, and how to use those principles to make great activities.
  3. Join the Desmos team next week for the third and final webinar in our December Webinar Series, where Michael Fenton will be leading Desmos DIY: Building Your Own Activities.
Date/Time: Dec 17, 2019 05:00 PM PST
Description: Find out what it takes to edit existing activities and to build your own from scratch. You'll learn about the Desmos Activity Builder, our design principles for engaging math, and how to use those principles to make great activities.
Register: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwuf-qhqTsseeU-1L3-1p7RNlJwF9DRMg

Desmos Computation Layer Newsletter

Desmos is starting a newsletter! They’ll use it to share new features, tips and tricks, and some learning activities for you to try on your own. First edition coming in January 2020! Sign up here: https://mailchi.mp/desmos/cl
 

Desmos Educators Facebook Group

The Desmos Educators Facebook Group group exists to help teachers explore and take advantage of the full pedagogical potential that Desmos has to offer. Specifically, this group will be:
  • A community where teachers can find each other and support each other.
  • An open channel of communication between teachers and Desmos: for Desmos to provide timely information and answer questions and for teachers to provide feedback and suggestions right from the classroom.
Join the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DesmosEducators/ 
 

Classroom Support and PD

If I can support your work with students, grade level team or department in implementing these resources, please don't hesitate to ask! Teachers can earn STEM clock hours for collaborating with the math TOSA to implement Desmos; see pd.nsd.org for details. 


Many of you are familiar with math tasks and Week of Inspirational Math available through Youcubed, but here are a few other resources you may not know of yet.
 

High Quality Teaching Examples

View these videos to learn more about teaching growth mindset, number talks, or making sense of fractions.
 

Poly Machines

Poly Machines allow students to explore mathematical relationships. Activities are available for students in grade 1 through high school. 
 

Mathematical Mindset Algebra

This 4-week curriculum unit can be used to introduce algebraic concepts at any grade level. It draws upon algebraic research showing that it is more helpful for students to learn algebra through studying pattern growth where a variable represents a case number, and can vary, before learning about “solving for x.” 


Exploring Calculus

Youcubed has created a new page to share some of the lessons used in the new class, Exploring Calculus, for Stanford undergraduates. The course explored the big ideas of calculus and used “Infinite Powers” by Steven Strogatz as the course reader. The six lessons below engage students in active explorations of the ideas of calculus. Two of the lessons, Volume of a Lemon and Walk the Graph, include videos from our class. 

STEM PD Opportunity 


NSEA/WEA STEM Integration Training

NSEA/WEA are offering a 15 hour training on STEM Integration free to certificated NSEA members in March. 

This workshop is designed to highlight and deep dive into the Science (NGSS), Technology (Washington State Standards), Mathematics (Common Core), and Engineering standards in order to have participants build and implement an integrated lesson with a minimum of two of the STEM components. Instructors will model and demonstrate how to build an authentic STEM experience for students and be delving into the standards in order to authentically design and implement a lesson with STEM. This workshop will include computer science, ELL, UDL, and game based learning components. 

This is a 15 hour course (clock hours provided). Delivery will be:
  • 5 hours online/independent study prior to training 
  • 10 hours of face-to-face learning
  • Friday, March 13, 2020 5:00 to 8:30 pm
  • Saturday, March 14, 2020 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
This professional development opportunity is being provided free of charge to NSEA members by NSEA and WEA. Space is limited and advanced registration is required. Click here to register. 

Dinner will be provided on Friday; breakfast and lunch will be offered on Saturday. Please contact Lydia King at lking@washingtonea.org to let us know if you have any dietary restrictions.

The Friday and Saturday training will be held at the WEA-Cascade/NSEA Office (22522 29th Drive SE #205 Bothell, WA 98021).

Click here to register.

Parent Access for Math Expressions

The Houghton Mifflin Math Expressions eStudent Editions for Grades K-5 allow parents and students online access to the Student Activity Books as well as the Homework and Remembering Pages and Family Letters. Parents can access this information on the Mathematics page of the NSD website. To access the eStudent Editions, parents must have their student login using their district Google account. For copyright reasons I am unable to give access to email addresses outside Northshore School District.

Classroom and School Support


Please contact me if I can help support you, your grade level team or PLC, or your school staff. Some ways I may be able to provide support include:
  • meet with groups of teachers to learn about the priorities in the CCSS,
  • teach a model lesson from our new middle school math curriculum in EAP and middle school math classes,
  • participate in math department planning sessions,
  • plan a lesson or math workshop for a team or school staff, 
  • participate in your math PLC. 
If I can support your work with students or your department, please don't hesitate to ask! 

Happy Holidays!
This newsletter comes to you by:
 

Patty Stephens

K-12 Mathematics Curriculum Specialist
Northshore School District
Email: pstephens@nsd.org
Copyright © 2019 Northshore School District, All rights reserved.


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