GUEST POST: Going Forward with GoFormative and Desmos (Hanalee Chung)

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2015-2016 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

Technology has streamlined the teaching process and has made it easier to demonstrate concepts that were once too abstract to explain in the traditional manner (verbally and visually on a PPT or whiteboard). Technology has put the learning into the hands of the students as manipulatives, examples, and exploratory tools (GoFormative, Desmos, Socrative, and Quizalize) -- providing students of different learning styles and preferences the opportunity to see mathematics in a different manner.

In GoFormative, students are able to move at their own pace, and many of them enjoy receiving instant feedback; however, what was traditionally done on paper and needed time to grade and return, we can do it instantaneously on GoFormative. For instance, I uploaded a graph onto GF and had students graph their lines on the program. From there, I would grade their work using the colorful bar on the bottom of the screen. This can all be done simultaneously as the students are working.  You can check out the assignment shown below with the Teacher Share Code: KDXH246

  In Desmos, students were allowed to go at their own pace, and many students who were able to finish independently were given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge/skill in a creative task that applied their new knowledge/skill. (student names have been changed to be anonymous)
  In this activity, students were taken through a series of slides that helped students “discover” the equation of a circle by guiding them and allowing them to experience the functions of the different parts of the equation -- facilitating their understanding of the different parts as well as the equation as a whole. Activity can be found here: https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/571e81a46c2f4c2e0be6f40f

Next year, I want to start incorporating more resources on Haiku (OfficeMix PPTs, videos from Sphere, which is our document camera recording software) that students can access before, during, and after the unit -- in a way, it would be great to start gradually flipping my classroom so that the instructional time can be used for in-depth, creative, and higher-order-thinking activities (rather than the distribution of information).

The Tech Fellowship provided me with the safety and confidence to try various technological tools and devices that I would not have normally explored on my own. In addition, because the fellowship was based on collaboration, it was great to receive input and learn about new tools online that I would have never come across. For instance, I would have not known about Quizizz, GoFormative, Quizalize, and OfficeMix if it had not been for the Tech Fellowship.

My name is Hanalee Chung.

I was born and raised in Guam for 14 years before moving to Rancho Cucamonga, California before my freshman year in high school.

I obtained my undergraduate degree at University of California, San Diego in Psychology.

I became interested in becoming a teacher when I volunteered as a math tutor for a research study that mapped brain waves of young learners. In order to explore my interest further, I interned as a Teaching Assistant at The Preuss School, a charter school located inside UCSD's campus.

I then went on to get my Secondary Teaching Credential in Math at University of California, Irvine.  I love coming to work everyday, and I have enjoyed improving my practice by being a fellow this year!