collaboration

3 New Desmos Activities: Talkers & Drawers

by Jon Orr

Goals of the activity:

Students will:
  • Begin to recognize characteristics of linear, quadratic, or periodic functions.
  • Generate a need to use proper vocabulary around linear, quadratic, or periodic functions.

Specific recommendations:

  • The “talker” cannot use their hands and should keep them behind his/her back. This will help the student be careful and direct the language they choose to describe the graph.
  • The “drawer” cannot talk.
  • Set a time limit. Possibly 3-4 minutes for the “talker” to describe the graph to the “drawer” with the goal to reproduce the graph.
  • Consider having all the “drawers” reveal the graphs at the same time for dramatic effect.
There are three different versions of the activity based on topic
Links to the three activities:

What the student experiences:

Once students choose a role tell them “Talkers, your goal is describe the graph perfectly to the drawer. Drawers, your goal is to listen carefully and without talking try to match the talkers graph. You will have 3 to 4 minutes for each graph.”
When the time is up, tell all the drawers to click the REVEAL button at the same time to see how close your sketch was.
 

What the teacher experiences:

While students are describing and sketching take time to listen to the words they use. Store these words for later in the class so you can link them to the proper names.
Example: 
You heard Jose Adem Chain say, “The pattern starts at 2 and goes up…” If most students are using the phrase “starts at..” We can introduce the term y-intercept.
Or on the periodic function version:
A student might say, “…it does that and then repeats 4 units later” You now have a gateway into introducing the period of the function.
After each round use the Teacher View to showcase some student graphs to the class.
Consider restricting the students to the current sketch and move from sketch to sketch as a class.
Last question.

The words generated on this slide will most likely be informal. As a class discuss the informal use of the word and then introduce the more formal words relating to the topic.
Inspired by Brian McBain and also the team at Desmos