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Two New Techtivities: The Dynamic Tent and The Changing Kite

Two new Techtivities are part of the collection:

 The Dynamic Tent

What could a tent look like with different lengths for its height and base? In this activity, investigate and graph relationships between the height and base of a dynamic tent. Inspired by Isosceles Triangle Graphs v4 by Steve Phelps: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/yxqay82kh7

The Changing Kite

What could a kite look like with different lengths and widths? In this activity, investigate and graph relationships between the length and width of a changing kite.

Tried these activities with students? Share your experiences with us.

Thanks to Dan Meyer and the team at Desmos for collaborating with ITSCoRe to develop these activities.

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ITSCoRe at the 2018 RUME Conference [Research on Undergraduate Math Ed]

ITSCoRe at the 2018 RUME Conference: Let’s provide opportunities for students to engage in covariational reasoning

Date: Friday, February 23

Time: 9:20-9:50, PST

Location: Coronado Room, Kona Kai Resort, San Diego

Networking Theories to Design Dynamic Covariation Techtivities for College Algebra Students

Heather Johnson, Evan McClintock, Jeremiah Kalir, Gary Olson, University of Colorado Denver

We share our work to develop opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in covariational reasoning.

Building from the work of mathematics education researchers (e.g., Kaput, Thompson, Moore), we developed a suite of Techtivities—free, accessible, digital media activities linking dynamic animations and graphs.

Using a Cannon Man Techtivity to illustrate, we provide four key design components and three theoretically based design principles underlying the Techtivities.

To inform design both within and across the Techtivities, we networked theories of different grain sizes: Thompson’s theory of quantitative reasoning and Marton’s variation theory.

Developing Techtivities for students in the gatekeeping course, College Algebra, we intend to expand students’ opportunities to employ covariational reasoning.

We discuss implications stemming from students’ opportunities to use free, accessible digital media activites, such as Techtivities, to promote their covariational reasoning.

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Introduction to Our Techtivities

We have a set of 5 dynamic computer activities, “Techtivities,” developed in collaboration with Dan Meyer and the team at Desmos.

 

The Techtivities link animations with dynamic graphs, in innovative and exciting ways. Students working on the Techtivities can have opportunities to form and interpret relationships between attributes capable of varying and possible to measure.

 

In this video clip, Heather Johnson talks about the Cannon Man Techtivity:

 

So far, the Techtivities are available in three languages:

English

German

Swedish

 

The Techtivities are free for others to use. We hope you will try them and let us know what you think!