I like the progression of the activity you linked. What I’ve been developing is during a section on conics after deriving the formula for a circle. I was hoping to use something similar to the delayed feedback example, hopefully tracking each submission as the students try to correct errors, and with some added complexities as the task continues. For instance, starting with 2-3 fields of red/blue dots as in your activity for conics, then one or two with r+1<(x-h)^2+(y-k)^2<r to give a thickness that they need to accommodate for, and eventually I started developing a sort of battleship game where the students can make guesses and narrow down on where the "ship" is

To help me calibrate my understanding, how close is this activity to what you’re looking for with regards to scoring, competition, fields of red and blue points, etc.

Recently, my class and I have been working with desmos and we started including a teamwork and competitive element. I am hoping to have series of fields with red and blue dots to have them separate, and if unable to include the least number of one color or the other. I find that my students have responded well to lessons like this to reinforce these skills, but sometimes they want to do it 3-4 times before they feel comfortable. With desmos, each page seems to go really quick, so it seems like it wouldn’t be bad to give them a variety.

Thanks for your thoughts here, Jason. Do you mean the same kinds of fields of red and blue dots and a multiple choice response for “Yes, a circle separates them.” or “No.”? I think we can make that happen pretty easily.

Apologies, I hit the wrong reply! It looked like it was below the earlier thread.

I used it a few ways, but I can’t take full credit – a special ed co-teacher introduced the idea. The first way was on formative quizzes or tests, we’d write 4-3-2-1 next to a question. A student could try something and ask us to look at it. For a little bit of advice or confirmation I would cross off the 4. If they came back, the 3, etc. For the quiz, we made the question worth that many points, and you could get as many points as were not crossed off. I then also had the data that even if the student got a question correct, I knew exactly how much help/advice we had given.

I then extended this into other practice work that were graded only as “complete/incomplete.” If I came to the student to talk about their work, nothing happened. If the student came up to me or another adult (instead of a peer, etc) to ask “Did I get this right?” I would check for them and discuss, but mark the question similarly. There was no grade consequence, but knowing that I was tracking it, they were motivated to make more independent attempts before asking for help. (Again, I stress that I was always circulating and conferencing to address misconceptions, but this solved a lot of the helpless “I can’t do it” procrastination.)

While the problem this solved for me is different than the guess-and-check problem on the Desmos activity, I think the strategy would have similar effects. Students like to get something right, and they like to get it right in fewer tries as well.

What if it displayed the previous formula and chart along with the current one, so the impact of the change made is visible instead of having to remember what the previous result and formula was?

This makes a lot of sense. I don’t love that clicking into the equation field makes the previous graph disappear.

Like this idea a lot, Mike. How did you pull it off in the classroom?