My Favorite Online Tools for Teaching Math
There are so many fantastic online tools for the mathematics classroom. Below is a list of links to some of my favorites:
Desmos
Desmos has so many amazing features. First of all, it is a free, online graphing calculator. The best thing about it though is all of the classroom activities. You can search for a math topic you are planning on teaching and find engaging activities that students can complete at their own pace. One of my personal favorites is Marble Slides. Students have to get the marbles into a hole by graphing lines that become slides for the marbles.
The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
This is a library of virtual manipulatives. They are organized by mathematics standard and by grade. Math can be very abstract for students so using manipulatives is a powerful visual to help math make sense. I don't always have access to every manipulative though and they can be quite expensive. This is a free way to access any manipulative you could want.
Dan Meyer Three Act Math Tasks
Dan Meyer is a former math teacher and now is a writer, a speaker, and works for Desmos. He created very engaging real-world math problems called Three Act Tasks. In the first act, students watch a video. Then in the second act, you pose a mathematical question based on the video and students gather information to answer that question. Then after students have solved the problem the third act is the rest of the video with the answer. Students love these problems and they often lead to more than one answer which opens the class up to interesting discussions. This link is a Google Doc of many different Three Act Tasks. You can search by the Common Core State Standard you are teaching.
Quizizz
This is a tool that is new for me, so I haven't gotten to use it in my classroom yet but I am excited to try it! It is similar to Kahoot but has a few features that I like more. First of all, the questions appear on student's devices rather than just on a screen at the front of the room. That makes it easier to read. Also, students can work at their own pace and you can even turn the time limits off. This tool is great for practicing math but could be used for other subjects as well.
Desmos
Desmos has so many amazing features. First of all, it is a free, online graphing calculator. The best thing about it though is all of the classroom activities. You can search for a math topic you are planning on teaching and find engaging activities that students can complete at their own pace. One of my personal favorites is Marble Slides. Students have to get the marbles into a hole by graphing lines that become slides for the marbles.
The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
This is a library of virtual manipulatives. They are organized by mathematics standard and by grade. Math can be very abstract for students so using manipulatives is a powerful visual to help math make sense. I don't always have access to every manipulative though and they can be quite expensive. This is a free way to access any manipulative you could want.
Dan Meyer Three Act Math Tasks
Dan Meyer is a former math teacher and now is a writer, a speaker, and works for Desmos. He created very engaging real-world math problems called Three Act Tasks. In the first act, students watch a video. Then in the second act, you pose a mathematical question based on the video and students gather information to answer that question. Then after students have solved the problem the third act is the rest of the video with the answer. Students love these problems and they often lead to more than one answer which opens the class up to interesting discussions. This link is a Google Doc of many different Three Act Tasks. You can search by the Common Core State Standard you are teaching.
Quizizz
This is a tool that is new for me, so I haven't gotten to use it in my classroom yet but I am excited to try it! It is similar to Kahoot but has a few features that I like more. First of all, the questions appear on student's devices rather than just on a screen at the front of the room. That makes it easier to read. Also, students can work at their own pace and you can even turn the time limits off. This tool is great for practicing math but could be used for other subjects as well.
Thank you for all these math resources! I'm excited to share them with my colleagues. I love Desmos too, and I see our math teachers using it frequently.
ReplyDeleteOn your Three Act Math Tasks, I noticed you mentioned a linked Google Doc, but I'm not seeing anything linked. I'd love to check out that resource more.
Thank you!
If you click on the heading that says "Dan Meyer Three Act Math Tasks" that will lead you to the Google Doc with all of the different tasks. I hope that helps!
DeleteThese were great! I will for sure have to check these out for use in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your tech tools. I'll be sure to pass along this information to the math teachers at my school! Which is your favorite for elementary students?
ReplyDeleteMy favorite for elementary are the three act tasks. The link above only has 6-12 grade tasks but there have been ones created for elementary as well. Graham Fletcher is a teacher who has created three act tasks for K-4 grade. You can find those here: https://gfletchy.com/3-act-lessons/
DeleteWhile he doesn't post as often as I wish he did, one of my colleagues that I went to Georgia with - Drew Polly, who is a faculty member in North Carolina - does a lot of work with elementary mathematics.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip! I will look him up.
DeleteI liked the Staff Picks: Creative Art in Desmos because the art makes the graph look fun.
ReplyDelete