Abstract:

In the Spring of 2020, Portugal was one of the countries that experienced the first lockdown at all their school levels system and it resulted in a new challenge also for teachers. During the second semester of 2020/2021 a new lockdown was imposed and, with a variety of tools available to teach, it was important to try different approaches at classes. From one hand it is desired to use digital tools accessible through the devices that students are most familiar with and, from another hand, that those tools were able to create a stimulating environment.

Desmos, a free platform, was used in a different way since Desmos combines features of graphic calculators and classroom activities (Activity Builder).

This platform was initially thought for use in mathematics, there are already many activities carried out on this platform ranging from the area of history to the area of languages. This platform allows the creation of free digital activities that are elaborated according to a pedagogical philosophy. One of the ideas behind that philosophy is the fact that students can be right or wrong in different ways since not all responses in the learning process need to have the usual "right" or "wrong" label. This platform allows students to give personalized feedback (and the quality of feedback can allow students to remain motivated); allows anonymous sharing of some student responses in a sequence created by the teacher, and it can enhance the debate of concepts and opinions.

Compared with several quizzes platforms (e.g. Kahoot!, Quizizz, etc) Desmos have the possibility of writing mathematical expressions by the students in their answers and, in fact, facilitate students' answers during that semester.

In this paper is presented some activities in calculus topics such as integration, sequences and ordinary differential equations using some of the Desmos Activity Builder tools. One of those tools is the “card sort” that transpose to the digital the easy activity to stack cards. Some analysis is made about the students' responses.

At the end, the students considered the Desmos environment as dynamic and attractive, and mentioned that it facilitates learning.

Keywords:

Calculus, Desmos, Feedback, Card Sort, Distance Learning.