Desmos Classroom products (Classroom Activities, Activity Builder, Computation Layer and the Desmos Math 6-A1 Program) are now part of Amplify Education. For the most current Desmos Classroom help center resources please visit Amplify’s help center.
The most accurate version of this specific article can be found here.
Learn more about: Setting Up Classes | Activity Permissions | Co-Teachers | Class Roster And Student History Pages
Create classes to assign activities to the same group of students throughout a school term. Students will use an invitation code to join the class at the beginning of the term.
To set up your classes for the new term, first go to teacher.desmos.com/manage-classes. Click the “Add New Class” button and either type the name of the class or import the class from Google Classroom.
Setting Up Classes
You’ll need to create a new class for each group of students that you teach during the term (e.g., Period 5, Period 6, etc.).
To share the invitation code, click on it. You will see a link that you can share with students or you can project the invitation code for the whole class to see. Students will enter this code on student.desmos.com to join.
Activity Permissions
What Are Activity Permissions?
Desmos activity permissions let you control who can access your classes and sessions, and serve as a security protocol to deter unwanted visitors. Approved students will have access to all social communication features and will be able to see responses from their classmates. Students without approval will still be able to join and participate in class sessions, but their responses will not be displayed to other students, and they will not be able to see other students’ responses.
Using Activity Permissions in Desmos Classes
When a student tries to enter one of your classes, a notification will appear at the bottom of your screen. While waiting for approval, students can still join and participate in class sessions, but won’t see their classmates’ responses until approved. Teachers and co-teachers can view the students waiting for access, and approve or deny accordingly. Students will need to be approved for each class they join. If you don’t recognize any names, you can quickly expire the code and deny all students so no one else can join.
Approving Students
You can also review student permissions directly from a teacher dashboard. Students currently waiting to access social features are displayed at the top of the page, while students who have been denied access are at the bottom. Student permissions can be edited at any time. If you accidentally approve a student, click the three dots next to their name to select the option to:
1) Hide the student: they will remain in the session, but their work won’t be shown to other students or appear in the dashboard.
2) Deny the student: they will be removed from the session entirely.
Using Activity Permissions in Single Sessions
When creating a new single session, you can choose whether to require student sign-in and teacher approval for social features. Session security settings cannot be changed once an invitation code is created, so we recommend taking some time to assess the needs of each session beforehand.
Setting Up Co-Teachers and Sharing Teacher Dashboard
Co-Teachers
Sharing Your Dashboard
You can share individual activity dashboards with other colleagues. Simply add a colleague to a dashboard, and they’ll get an email with a link for dashboard access. Once you’ve added someone to the dashboard, you can also share the dashboard URL with them directly.
Open the dashboard you want to share.
Click on the activity title to find the “Share dashboard” link.
Add your colleagues to the Dashboard.
Colleagues will need to have an existing Desmos account to be added to the dashboard.
They will receive an email with the dashboard link.
You can also share the dashboard URL with them directly for dashboard access.
Pro Tips for Co-Teaching
Import from Google Classroom Classes.
If you create a Class that’s linked to Google Classroom, we’ll import the co-teacher from Google Classroom. Be sure to add the co-teacher as a teacher in your Google Classroom, then press “sync” from the Classes page and they’ll have access.
Either teacher can facilitate, leave feedback and take snapshots.
We recommend dividing up the responsibility: while one teacher facilitates the conversation toolkit, the other can snapshot interesting student thinking or leave feedback that helps students develop their ideas.
Trade notes afterwards.
Discuss together the kinds of support different students need, both of you with your own copy of the dashboard right in front of you.
Class Roster And Student History Pages
Class Roster Page
From the Manage Classes page, you can click on an individual class roster to:
1) View invitation code information. You can also expire the code or generate a new code.
2) Remove students from the class. Students will still be able to access class activities that they have previously joined, but will not see any new activities assigned to the class. If you need to move a student to a different class, you will need to remove them from the incorrect class and send them the invitation code for the correct class.
3) Edit student names. This change will not affect the student’s account name, and will only show up in activities assigned to this class.
4) View individual student activity history for the class.
Student History Page
From the class roster page, you can view an individual student’s activity history for the class. Each row will show the activity information, date assigned, and a link to view the student’s work if the student has started the activity.
Please note that responses from other classmates are not included when viewing an individual student’s work in an activity, so you won’t be able to view responses