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Desmos Reflection Journals

Leveraging Desmos to increase student agency, choice, and reflection.

Purpose

Reflection and student agency are necessary to increase learning outcomes by fostering higher order thinking, metacognitive skills, and growth. Structured scaffolding helps students process emotions, practice cognitive learning, and build their capacity for self-regulation and agency. Studies highlight that reflection correlates strongly with deeper learning, while written reflections, like journals, are effective for fostering better academic outcomes​. (Coulson & Harvey, 2013)

Intended Outcomes

By incorporating structured reflection journals using digital tools like Desmos, students will increase their ability to connect content, self-reflect, have choices, and increase engagement due to the lower barrier to entry without letting technology get in the way. The outcomes are having a better working knowledge of both Desmos to facilitate the reflection journals for any subject and best practices of student reflection. Teachers will be able to be more creative while being able to manage time more effectively, be dynamic, engage students, and have their fingers on the pulse of student learning.

Digital Reflection Journals (Strategy)

DRJ increases student choice, reflection, critical thinking, and gives hands-on practice. They also assist lifelong learning and retention by promoting critical thinking, engagement, ownership of learning, and much more Alt et al. (2022) Pleschová (2020). Students are able to map content to other content effectively, socially and emotionally regulate, have choices, and are more motivated to engage due to the inherent scaffolding.

Desmos as a tool

Desmos is a digital learning platform that allows teachers to mimic the in-class experience of working on whiteboards, manipulating tools, and answering questions in real time and/or asynchronously. It provides an important level of individual accountability to strive for 100% engagement and cognitive lift. Desmos is often thought of as only a math tool, but it's so much more. At our school, every subject uses it, and they use it effectively. While it was originally designed for math, its tools are modular, easy to use and create, and easy to interact with as students. On the surface level of understanding, it provides all of these necessary result, but it can be extended to a full coding and gamified experience. (Retro Desmos, n.d.)

References

Alt D, Raichel N & Naamati-Schneider L (2022) Higher Education Students’ Reflective Journal Writing and Lifelong Learning Skills: Insights From an Exploratory Sequential Study. Front. Psychol. 12:707168. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.707168 Coulson, D., & Harvey, M. (2013). Scaffolding student reflection for experience-based learning: A framework. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(4), 401-413. Pleschová, G. (2020). Using reflective journals to improve learning through reflection and conceptual change. European Political Science, 19(1), 29–48. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0184-5 Retro Desmos. (n.d.). Retro Desmos. Retrieved November 22, 2024, from https://retrodesmos.com