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The Pet House Project: Math Art Instead of Math Tests

Are you still giving tests in virtual math classes? Math teachers are so tied to tests they some times cling to them like a life preserver. My biggest struggles around testing are usually other math teachers. If this pandemic does anything good I hope it helps us evaluate how we assessing in math classes. 

With traditional math tests, students have gotten good at finding ways to get other people or computers to do the thinking for them. (Photo Math). This is of course even easier to do when your teacher isn't there watching you take the test and you take it at home. One way that other contents get around this is through essays and projects. Those are much harder to just ask a computer to solve for you. 

But math teachers don't usually do this....in part because they aren't sure how to make it happen. I'm writing this as a way to share an example. 

Right before winter break we squeezed in the first half of Unit 3: Linear Relationships. I saved a lot of it for January but I wanted my students to get a little bit of practice graphing lines so they could work on a fun project the last we of break instead of studying for a final test. 

Pet House Project: Teacher Activity Link

Experience it as a Student Here

I suppose you could think of this Assessment as Summative but the truth of it is that it provides a ton of formative data as well--and the first part of the activity reviews how we have learned to graph vertical, horizontal lines, use intercept form, and slope-intercept form to graph lines. And I can use student struggles on the first 6 screens to target my interventions and assistance on the last few screens. 

The pet houses are amazing. As always. 






The other thing that happens is that kids will teach themselves some cool things. We had only learned how to graph linear equations--but these kids are teaching themselves quadratics, polynomials, and inequalities, and circles to get shading and the shapes they want! I asked one student how she learned this and she told me she spent a few hours after school googling Desmos art and trying to see how people created different shapes with equations. Isn't that every math teacher's dream? To design an assessment that sparks enough joy in your content to get your kids to dive into learning it themselves! 




I always ask reflection questions at the end and I know that because of this students are learning a lot while actually taking the assessment....not just showing what they know. (names are anonymized) 




I really hope that more teachers will consider Desmos Art as final projects! 

Also check out the work that my local colleague Alison Strole is doing in with her Algebra Architecture Project. She had a student who was a finalist in the Desmos Art Contest  https://www.smore.com/nv652.



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