Live Activity in Magma is designed to boost student engagement and encourage clear, thoughtful math work — all in real time! With Live Activity, teachers can monitor students’ calculations and answers as they work through exercises together. We recommend projecting Live Activity on a large classroom screen so everyone can follow along, collaborate, and stay motivated toward common goals.
New features include celebrations with Lava, pacing controls, and improved progress tracking.
How to Access Live Activity
Open the assignment just like you would for the Heatmap.
Look for the Live Activity button at the top right — it pulses when students start submitting answers.
Tracking Student Progress
At the top of the Live Activity view, you’ll see a static progress bar set at 100% with milestone flags already in place. This lets you instantly see progress thresholds before students start working.
New milestones appear at:
10%
25%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Two icons help you quickly assess progress:
Green check mark: Correct answers
Orange thumbs up: Clear calculations (Magma’s help bot appears for students submitting clear work)
Encouraging Clear Calculations
Students’ clear calculations appear live on screen as they submit answers. When displayed on a classroom screen, this transparency encourages students to show their thinking, boosts engagement, and sparks meaningful discussions about problem-solving strategies.
Calculations are anonymized by default, but you can toggle student names on or off by clicking the hat-and-glasses icon at the top right.
You’ll also see a running total of clear calculations at the top of the page — a handy way to celebrate progress
Tip: There is an option to turn the sound off on Live Activity.
Celebrations
Live Activity now includes Lava celebrations to reward progress. Teachers can turn the celebration sound on or off in the settings menu.
Pacing Students
Teachers can pace students by clicking the pacing button found in the Live Activity drop-down menu. This helps manage the class flow and keeps everyone on track.
Exercise Tasks and Common Mistakes
Below the calculations, you’ll find a list of the exercise’s tasks with their numbers and total count.
Watch for a small red dot next to any task number — this signals a common mistake. Clicking the task lets you view the problem, the typical error, and students’ incorrect answers.
This is the perfect moment to pause and work through the problem together as a class, turning errors into learning opportunities.
A Work in Progress
Live Activity is a new feature we’re excited to grow with you. Please share your feedback via chat — what’s working well and what could be better. Your input helps us build an even better tool!