Desmos Classroom Activities
What are Classroom Activities?
Desmos' mission is "to help every student learn math and love learning math." Desmos Classroom Activities allow for student engagement, voice, and differentiation while providing real-time feedback in a synchronous or asynchronous setting. Classroom Activities are ready to use and assign to your students in your LMS, or can be copied and edited to suit your needs.
Desmos Guide to Building Great (Digital) Math Activities
Read this article about how important it is to build a classroom activities with "identity, culture, curriculum, cognition, and pedagogy" in mind.
Starting out
Watch the video to find and assign a Classroom Activity. Go to teacher.desmos.com and use the Sign In with Google to get started.
What Classroom Activity should I choose? Go to our Desmos Curriculum Maps for recommended Activities by topic.
Desmos Classes Vs. Single-code
Create classes to assign activities to the same group of students throughout a school term. Students will use an invitation code to join the class at the beginning of the term.
To set up your classes for the new term, first go to teacher.desmos.com/manage-classes. Click the “Add New Class” button and either type the name of the class or import the class from Google Classroom.
You can also assign your students one activity by using a Single-Session Code. It is recommended that you use Classes for full functionality.
desmos Teacher Tip: Classes vs. Single-Code
Devin Onkst, middle school math teacher at SCAPA, and Amanda Craft, high school math instructor at Frederick Douglass, recommend that teachers use the Classes option for sharing Classroom Activities:
Students that are absent can access the activities easily with one link.
Students that are new to the classes after the start of the year can easily view previous activities.
Activities won't expire and teachers can keep track of which activities were assigned throughout the year.
Students can access feedback from teachers by going back to previous activities in their class.
Get Feedback
Let's get into a classroom activity and learn how the Teacher Dashboard helps you get real-time feedback from your students! We will also cover how to edit an activity and make it your own!
Promote Discussion
Use the Snapshots feature in Desmos Classroom Activities to ask open, probing questions during or after an activity.
Take it to the next level and edit
or create your own activity!
NeW! Getting Started with Activity builder!
Go to Desmos Help for great tips and examples to create your own Desmos Classroom Activity! And share it with FCPS through the Highlight Hub! (updated 7/22)
EDIT A Classroom Activity
Want to edit an activity or copy a Starter Screen into a Classroom Activity? See video below.
Create your own activity
Use Activity Builder to create your own activity from scratch! Go to teacher.desmos.com and follow the directions below.
What are the different components you can add to your Activity? Click below and then scroll for descriptions of each type.
COMPUtational Layer
"Computation Layer (CL) is the tissue that connects screens and components in our activities, converting discrete, isolated mathematical moments into a richer, more coherent experience for students. CL lets you connect different mathematical representations, to change what students see later based on their earlier work, and to collect data from an entire class of students."