The Big Picture
Absolutely! The Desmos Math 6-A1 aligns to the Common Core standards. We are starting to work with specific states to adapt our curriculum to their standards. If you’d like to learn more about that work, please reach out to us directly at desmos-program@amplify.com.
The Desmos Math 6-A1 is a full and comprehensive core curriculum. The units have been built to reflect a full-year course of study for each grade in middle school.
Yes it does! While much of what Desmos provides is and will continue to be free, our curriculum should be compared to other core curriculum offerings. In addition to supporting the curriculum’s ongoing development and maintenance as a paying customer, you’ll receive access to comprehensive curriculum materials and our dedicated coaching and support.
We have deep respect for IM and continue to draw strong inspiration from all of their work. Because we are working on adapting the Desmos Math 6-A1 based on real-time feedback, we aren’t pursuing the certification at this moment.
If you’re wondering about the similarities or differences between IM and the Desmos Math 6-A1, here is the alignment between IM paper and our Math 7 curriculum, and IM paper and our Math 8 curriculum.
Not yet! We have submitted the curriculum for review and are awaiting the results, we’re based on the Illustrative Mathematics Middle School Math curriculum, which has excellent ratings from EdReports. Our curriculum follows IM’s structure for units, lesson learning goals, and assessments.
The Algebra 1 Desmos Math 6-A1 will be released on a rolling basis and will be implemented by teachers throughout the 2022-2023 school year. We used the same model with Math 6 this past year, and it worked great!
Equity and Accessibility
We design the Desmos Math 6-A1 using Universal Design for Learning (we also do this for our Desmos activities). Custom accessibility (i.e., writing image/video descriptions and adding graph/sketch narration) is available in select lessons and more details are found below. We’re eager for feedback from teachers who work with students with learning differences and who will help us meet our mission to help every student learn math and love learning math.
The Desmos Math 6-A1 is designed to be paired with Mathematical Language Routines. Specific student supports can be found on screens throughout each digital lesson and in the lesson guide of each paper lesson. Our digital lessons make animations, images, and interactions more accessible to students learning English.
Desmos’s tools are designed from the ground up with accessibility in mind. We comply with the WCAG 2.1 standards at the AA level wherever possible, and go beyond where we can. Please see www.desmos.com/accessibility for details on our approach, as well as for instructions on setting up screen readers. For details on WCAG compatibility within our classroom tools, please see our Classroom WCAG 2.1 Compliance chart.
The lessons in our curriculum make use of our accessibility features, including dynamic narration for interactive elements. We work to apply a layer of custom accessibility to our lessons, including narrations for graph and sketch components and descriptions for images and videos. Most lessons in Math 7 and 8 include custom accessibility, and we are working to apply custom accessibility to the rest of the curriculum. The student workbooks that accompany each course are also available in the NIMAC library. In addition, text to speech (beta) is available for students to turn on in the Accessibility Settings area in the student sidebar (click the hamburger in the top-left corner of an activity). Once enabled, students will be able to hear the text in any note on a screen and adjust the playback speed.
For questions about accessibility, please reach out to our accessibility team at accessibility@desmos.com.
Here are our company-wide equity principles, which guide us in our work of ensuring that the Desmos Math 6-A1 serves all students and teachers.
Yes! To navigate difficult decisions that can come up when teaching in a hybrid or distance-learning model, our lesson developers created suggestions for consolidation and omission for each unit in addition to our Remote Learning Guidance. The suggestions offer tips to support students in making as much of their time as possible given that some content will need to be skipped. You can find them at the end of each Unit Facilitation Guide. Here are a few examples:
Technical Requirements
At least 200 kbps per student.
We support the most recent two versions of every popular browser on ChromeOS, Windows, and Apple devices. For a complete list, please see our article on Browser and System Requirements.
For in-person learning, we recommend having at least 2:1 devices. Students do not need to have access to devices outside the classroom. For distance/hybrid learning, we recommend that every student have their own device.
We are FERPA and COPPA compliant and support Google SSO. Please see our extended privacy policy and how we handle student data. If you need us to sign a data agreement, feel free to send us an email.
Desmos Classes is fully integrated with Google Classroom, but many of our schools use other LMS systems with success. Google and Apple are currently available for SSO options. If there is a specific LMS or SSO provider that your school or district uses, please let us know!
Curriculum Components
The Desmos Math 6-A1 is Common Core–aligned, and work is in progress for state-specific alignments, including TEKS. If you are interested in specific alignment and its progress, please reach out to our team directly at desmos-program@amplify.com.
To learn more about the standards covered throughout the Desmos Math 6-A1, check out the documents below:
- Math 6
- Math 7
- Math 8
- Algebra 1
- Sequence and Release timeline
- In-depth guide (coming soon)
There are resources to support everyone’s needs and interests in each unit.
In the Desmos Math 6-A1 Guide, you will find information about the structure of the curriculum and the resources available, as well as wisdom from teachers about how they make the most of the curriculum in their classrooms.
The Unit Facilitation Guide supports teachers as they plan and implement a unit. It includes information about how the unit builds on prior learning and how it informs future learning. You’ll also find the big ideas of the unit, lessons by standard, and a brief summary of the purpose of each lesson along with other details that may be helpful for planning. Here is a sample Unit Facilitation Guide.
The Admin Guide supports instructional leaders in making sense of a unit. It contains the big ideas of the unit, connections to prior and future learning, and samples of what you might see and hear throughout a unit. Here is a sample Admin Guide.
The Student Goals and Glossary is a reference that includes student-friendly learning goals for each lesson as well as definitions of vocabulary words along with examples. Here is a sample of the Student Goals and Glossary.
The Family Resource contains explanations of key concepts so that students and families have common language. It also includes exercises for students and families to try together. Here are samples of a Family Resource in English and in Spanish.
In general, we don’t start building lessons saying to ourselves, “This one needs to be paper or this one needs to be digital.” We ask ourselves, “What medium would most benefit student learning here?” So in lessons where we’re able to represent mathematical ideas with animations and let students power contexts through their mathematical ideas, we use digital. In lessons where students would benefit from moving around a classroom, manipulating paper, or sketching, we use paper. The current balance is roughly 80% digital lessons and 20% paper lessons. Each digital and paper lesson also includes access to paper or digital practice problems and printable student notes. All assessments are also available on paper.
We know that schools have a wide variety of programming models, and the Desmos Math 6-A1 is adaptable to various class time formats (with some teacher decision-making about how best to do that). Most Desmos lessons are designed to take 45 minutes.
Of course! We have lots of teachers with block schedules and shorter class periods using our curriculum. It just requires additional teacher time to determine how to stretch or squeeze the lessons into your bell schedule. You can copy and edit the activities to fit into your class period.
Licensing Questions
Yes! Desmos has a commitment to never charge for parts of our service that are currently free. Our calculators will remain free forever, as will Activity Builder and free activities available at teacher.desmos.com. Many of the improvements that we make for building our curriculum will also become free. By purchasing the Desmos Math 6-A1, you are contributing to improving the free Desmos capabilities for everyone.
Our curriculum is a yearly recurring cost, based on a per-student model. If you’d like a quote, you can submit a quote request or reach out to us directly at desmos-program@amplify.com.
The license cost includes both access to the entirety of our core curriculum and programmatic support. See more info here.
Yes! You can submit a trial request or reach out to us directly at desmos-program@amplify.com.
Program Support
We’ve added built-in professional learning support, directly in response to feedback from our hundreds of pilot teachers over the past few years. Each site will also have a dedicated Desmos Coach, onboarding webinars, unit overviews, and more. For even more specific details, you can also check out what’s provided as part of the program here.
Yes, we can provide additional fee-based professional development for those who are interested. Check out our professional learning page to learn more or feel free to email us directly.
Yes, there is a Desmos Math 6-A1 Facebook community where teachers can connect and share their experiences with the curriculum. There are also opportunities to join Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) with other teachers using the curriculum, which builds tons of community!