Are your focus tubs gathering dust or lacking direction? This hands-on professional development session will explore practical, effective strategies for organizing and using focus tubs to support student engagement, independence, and targeted skill development. Participants will learn how to align materials with learning goals, create intentional rotations, and differentiate tasks to meet a variety of student needs. Walk away with ready-to-use ideas, management tips, and inspiration to make your focus tubs a purposeful and powerful part of your focus routine.
Why should you attend? In this session, teachers will gain hands-on experience with Desmos tools, including the Graphing Calculator, Scientific Calculator, and Geometry Tool, and learn how to incorporate them into their teaching practices. The session will begin by exploring the functionality of the Desmos Graphing Calculator, which is widely used on standardized tests like the PSAT, SAT, ACT, and AP exams. Teachers will learn how to use the Desmos tools not just for solving problems, but as a tool to help students visualize complex mathematical concepts. Additionally, Desmos has a set of activities in what is called Desmos Classroom. These are interactive student centered activities and lessons with the goal of fostering student thinking, collaboration and content knowledge. We will spend some time in this session going over how Desmos Classroom works and how it can be implemented into the classroom.
What is the format? The format of this session will be an informal roundtable discussion. The leader will facilitate with some guiding questions, and from there, teachers will have time to explore, work with the tools, plan lessons, and consider how to implement Desmos in their classrooms.
What will you learn? Participants will learn how Desmos tools are used on standardized tests Participants will learn how Desmos can be used for visualizing functions, table of values, transformations and regression. Participants will collaborate on how Desmos has already (or could be) implemented in their classroom. Participants will learn how to use Desmos tools to foster student engagement and active learning by creating interactive activities that promote exploration and problem-solving Participants will learn how to use Desmos Classroom Activities to foster student engagement and learning
