Skip to Content Skip to Footer

Building math lessons: The playful side you never knew existed

Two people smiling in separate circles; one has a cartoon corgi icon, the other shows math blocks—perfect for celebrating early literacy skills—all set on a cheerful yellow background.

When you think of what goes on behind the scenes of building Amplify Classroom lessons, you probably envision carefully calculated math formulas and complicated equations, right?

Not exactly. Meet Sara Barring and Sean Sweeney from our interaction development team! They create animations and interactions for many of our most popular math lessons, and one day they decided to record some of their work sessions. What began as a simple “Wouldn’t it be fun…” conversation turned into something pretty remarkable: a front row seat to their joyous exploration of math.

Sean and Sara spend their days bringing math problems to life using Activity Builder, Amplify Classroom’s lesson-building tool. Their goal is to encourage students to explore their own thinking, moving beyond traditional right-and-wrong feedback. Instead of being told “no” when a guess is off, students get visual Responsive Feedback that demonstrates the meaning behind their thinking. In the grade 6 lesson Weight for It, for example, the animation shows them what would happen if the dog actually weighed what they guessed!

Sean and Sara help create a safe, playful space where making a mistake isn’t a failure, but a visual stepping stone that encourages students to try again. This creative process is exactly what they decided to capture on camera. Their video series, “Graph Time With Sara and Sean,” reveals what happens when pure curiosity guides work in graphing mathematics. Each episode opens the window into a genuine, surprising discovery, showing the magic happens when you stop worrying about perfection. Watching these videos, even those who feel intimidated by math or think math isn’t for them may feel inspired to try it themselves.

Redefining mistakes as happy accidents

In any field, the word “mistake” can feel loaded. But for Sara and Sean, the process of creating math animations is less about avoiding mistakes and more about seeing what happens.

A great thing about working in Activity Builder’s graphing calculator, Sara notes, is that you can immediately see how every adjustment affects the animation. This instant visibility helps shift your perspective—an unexpected result isn’t a failure, but a happy accident. According to Sara, these moments provide a pivot point into a new, unplanned direction.

Take one episode of “Graph Time” that wouldn’t exist without a happy accident Sean had while trying to create a firework animation for one of our lessons. That “mistake” led to the discovery of unexpected mathematical patterns that the team may not have found otherwise. These patterns seem to magically emerge from simple sine and cosine functions, revealing flower-like designs, perfect circles, and intricate geometric shapes that feel limitless in their variety, proving that mathematical beauty often reveals itself through curious experimentation rather than careful planning.

Sara and Sean hope to show viewers the reality of their work–with all the struggles, detours, and joy. You might expect someone who creates math animations all day to have their steps carefully mapped out. “We don’t,” Sean says, “and that’s part of what we like about it.”

The ripple effect: Transforming math culture

Sara and Sean’s playful approach to building curriculum content creates waves they hope will extend beyond their own creative joy, inspiring a new generation of math explorers.

For teachers, these videos offer more than just creative techniques—they provide a blueprint for shifting classroom culture. Sean emphasizes that viewers are seeing “the real work they do every day,” providing educators with an authentic model for bringing genuine excitement to mathematical learning. Sara, drawing from her teaching background, recognizes the transformative power of just changing the narrative: “Math gets such a bad rep a lot of the time, so even if Graph Time with Sara and Sean just offers a positive rebrand on some things, I think that’s powerful, too.”

When students see people having fun with math, through teachers or videos like “Graph Time With Sara and Sean,” they begin to see math as an invitation to explore. Sean and Sara are hoping they can help students find their own magic, making math less about intimidation and more about fun.

Check out Sara and Sean’s videos to see their graphing creations in action!

Ready to create your own amazing math adventures? Check out our Lesson Building Toolkit for bite-size tutorials on making your own lesson creations with Amplify Classroom.

Free professional learning opportunities for math educators

We hope you’ll take some time this summer to refresh your energy—and your math teaching skills and knowledge. We’re here to help with these professional learning opportunities for math teachers.  

Culled from our trove of blog posts and webinars, we’ve compiled a list of math teacher resources covering topics from technology in the math classroom to math anxiety and more. We hope your down time and your math time add up to a great summer! 

Diving into math curriculum

As math teachers, you work every day to celebrate student brilliance, build deep conceptual understanding, and create the conditions for every student to be successful. Find out how Amplify Desmos Math can help with these resources. 

Desmos Classroom

This four-part webinar series will give you the tools you need to go from platform novice to skilled Desmos Classroom whiz.

What amazing math looks like

How can you help students both learn math and love math? Examine what amazing math looks like for both educators and students in this webinar series that explores the importance of focus, engagement, and collaboration. Start with our special kickoff webinar presented by math expert Dan Meyer, host of Math Teacher Lounge, then binge-watch our webinars on next-level math engagement! 

Desmos Math 6–A1

Learn about the EdReports process for evaluating high-quality instructional materials (including Desmos Math 6–8) in a post from our blog, then check out our info session and Step Ahead webinars to learn more about the program—and see it through the eyes of math students!

Creating a math community 

As any mathematician knows, there’s strength in numbers! The following posts, all from the Amplify blog, will help you build a culture of collaboration and community in your math classrooms. 

Summer is one of those good things that must come to an end. But when it does, we hope these resources will have helped you feel more prepared than ever for a magical year of math! 

Embracing artificial intelligence in the math classroom

Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere these days. We use it when we ask Alexa or Siri for the morning weather report. We use it when GPS tells us how to best avoid traffic. We use it when we chill at the end of the day with a recommendation from Netflix. 

But what about during the day—and specifically, at school? Even more specifically, can AI be leveraged to enhance the math classroom? 

“While AI is an amazing tool, you’ve really got to make sure that you are focusing in on your expertise as well,” says veteran math educator and STEM instructional coach Kristen Moore, “And saying, ‘How can I use this to make something better?’ and not just, ‘How can I use this to make something?’” 

In this post, we’ll talk about the current state of AI in math education, and how it can support educators in making math better. (SPOILER: It’s not going to replace you!) 

First, some STEM learning for us: What is artificial intelligence? 

Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to the development of computer systems able to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. 

It involves creating algorithms and systems that enable computers to learn from data, adapt to new situations, and make decisions or predictions.

AI aims to mimic human cognitive functions such as understanding language, recognizing patterns, solving problems, and making decisions. It encompasses a range of techniques and technologies, including machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing, and robotics.

The term “artificial intelligence” was introduced in 1956.  The availability of vast amounts of data and advancements in computer power in the 2010s led to additional breakthroughs. And with the proliferation of smartphones, smart devices, and the internet, AI technologies began to work their way into our homes, cars, pockets, and everyday lives.

What’s the state of AI in education? 

AI is already commonplace in schools and classrooms. Here are just a few examples:

  • Adaptive learning: This software uses AI algorithms to adjust the difficulty and content of lessons based on a student’s performance, helping students remain engaged and challenged at their optimal level.
  • Assistive technologies: AI helps students with disabilities by providing assistive technologies like text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools, making educational content more accessible.
  • Plagiarism detection: These tools use AI algorithms to identify instances of copied or unoriginal content in students’ assignments, essays, and projects. 
  • Data analysis for teachers: AI analyzes data from student assessments to identify trends and insights, helping teachers make informed decisions about instructional strategies. It can also predict students’ performance trends, helping teachers identify at-risk students early and intervene to provide additional support.
  • Grammar, spelling, and style checkers: AI can provide real-time feedback to students (and teachers!) on their writing work.

Embracing AI technology in your math classroom

While AI is not here to replace teachers, it is here to stay. And experts say it’s only going to become more commonplace. But despite how common AI is already—both outside and inside school—not all teachers are familiar with its numerous applications and potential. Now is a great time for educators to start exploring its uses and get ahead of the curve.

Here are a few easy entry points for math teachers. 

ChatGPT: A common AI tool, ChatGPT is designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives. It’s trained on a wide range of internet text, which enables it to generate responses to a vast array of prompts and questions. 

Most students have likely experimented with ChatGPT, while teachers—though aware of it—are less likely to use it. ChatGPT has highly practical applications for both groups, though—including in the math (and science) classroom. 

It can, for example, help teachers plan interesting, relevant math lessons for their students. Kristen Moore, who discusses this topic on Math Teacher Lounge, suggests that math teachers use ChatGPT to:

  • Connect topics to student interests and vice-versa. (Teachers can ask ChatGPT for real-life applications of polynomials and select those that might pique student interest, or ask about math applications derived from students’ hobbies and pursuits.) 
  • Generate word problems (including step-by-step solutions), lessons, projects and rubrics, and more.

Toward the (near) future

As AI advances, it will continue to revolutionize education. Here are a few time-saving ways that educators can look forward to using it in their classrooms.

  • AI tutors: AI-powered virtual tutors will help math students with homework questions and provide explanations for various concepts. These tutors can be available at home 24/7, allowing students to seek an AI homework helper whenever they need it.
  • Automatic graders: Some AI tools can automatically grade math work, including multiple-choice and short-answer assignments. These tutors can be available at home 24/7 in any household with internet access, allowing students to seek more personalized instruction.
  • Personalized learning paths: These AI-powered platforms will work particularly well for math students by adapting to each student’s skill level and pace, offering tailored exercises and challenges that cater to their strengths and identify areas of improvement. They will analyze students’ performance and adjust the difficulty of content, ensuring that students get targeted support and opportunities to progress.

More to explore

To dive deeper into AI in math education—and get rolling with AI in your classroom—check out this two-episode mini-series on our Math Teacher Lounge podcast focused on just that: 

“I’m a believer that learning is inherently social,” says Carolan, who is quick to emphasize how technology can enhance that quality, not replace it. The same can be said for the role teachers play in the classroom—a role technology can support, but never take away. To learn more about this topic (and discuss it with your fellow educators!), head to our Math Teacher Lounge community!