Evolution or Revolution: two activities to enhance student learning

Technologies enable small improvements, accumulating over time to major change. This academic year my students and I used two that I’d like to share. Desmos (https://www.desmos.com/) is a free online graphing calculator. I... [ view full abstract ]

Technologies enable small improvements, accumulating over time to major change. This academic year my students and I used two that I’d like to share.

Desmos (https://www.desmos.com/) is a free online graphing calculator. I used it to help visualise functions, including finding maximum and minimum values as a complement to differentiation. Setups can be saved and shared; for example, getting students to interact with a scatter diagram to move points around to explore the impact on a correlation coefficient (https://www.desmos.com/calculator/txr2erwl1u). Students can use the free app on their phone (or via a browser on any device) to check their work and deepen their understanding through visual insight.

When flipping the classroom, do students engage with the videos before class? EdPuzzle (https://edpuzzle.com/) is a free tool that allows you to add questions to a YouTube video, crop the length, add your own audio comments, and then track the students use. A strength is the level of feedback that can be given, both automatic (when student watches the video) and personalised (you can mark and add individual feedback). See my first example https://edpuzzle.com/media/56559ffea4afbd5878f4f0b0 (made in about 30mins).

Both of the above allow small evolutionary changes that have the potential to have a profound impact on learning – one challenge is to harness these and other technologies effectively to engage students. A question is to step back and reflect, to envisage if and how these can revolutionise student learning.