Pre-Service Mathematics Teacher
Statistics
Books
Book: Statistics and Probability in High School
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ISBN: 978-9463006231
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Summary:
"Statistics and probability are fascinating fields, tightly interwoven with the context of the problems which have to be modelled. The authors demonstrate how investigations and experiments provide promising teaching strategies to help high-school students acquire statistical and probabilistic literacy. [...] In each chapter, the development of a cluster of fundamental ideas is centred around a statistical study or a real-world problem that leads to statistical questions requiring data in order to be answered. The concepts developed are designed to lead to meaningful solutions rather than remain abstract entities. For each cluster of ideas, the authors review the relevant research on misconceptions and synthesise the results of research in order to support teaching of statistics and probability in high school."
Websites & Apps
JBstatistics
This website was created by a mathematician Jeremy Balka. He has his Ph.D. in statistics. He creates videos about different aspects of statistics, such as discrete random variables, continuous random variables, and much more! The videos are easy to understand, and Dr. Balka creates examples that relate to the real-world. He then solves them step by step with explanations.
SAS is a statistical software that allows the user to compute standard deviations, test statistics, p-values, means, and much more! This software requires the user to code a program in order to find statistics. In Pennsylvania, math teachers are able to teach computer classes. This is a great way to combine math and coding!
SAS
Lesson Plans & Assessments
Basic Probability (Stations) Lesson Plan
Activity: An Election Poll
This activity was found in "Hands-On Math Projects with Real-Life Applications" by Gary Robert Muschla and Judith A. Muschla. (ISBN 0-87628-384-9)
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This project has students create a poll to hand out or to be asked. Students are to create a frequency table to show how many times the answer "Yes," "No," or "Undecided" occurred. This project can be modified to have students calculate their data, and predict what would happen if this questionnaire was given to, for example, 500 people.
Activity: Who Has the Longest First Name?
This activity was found at
https://www.statisticsteacher.org/files/2019/01/LongestName.pdf
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This activity has students writing their names on a sticky note, and then grouping them on the board based on how many letters is in their first name. Students are creating a dot plot in order to see how many names consist of the same number of letters.They are also asked to find the maximum, minimum, mean, median, range, and mode.
Manipulatives
Dice are very universal in the math classroom. Students can roll two dice to and apply basic arithmetic operations to the numbers to review adding, subtracting multiplying and dividing. They can roll two numbers and create a fraction, and if necessary, simplify them. Students can also compute basic probabilities through trial and error. They can, for example, roll the dice 10 times, and compute the amount of times they rolled an even number. They can then take their results and compute the probability, if this trend continues, of rolling a an even number out of 100 rolls. By doing this, students are also using algebra.
Dice
Marbles
Marbles can be easily utilized in the statistics classroom. Students can randomly draw marbles from a preset bag of marbles, consisting of specific colors. They can compute the probability of their drawings. For example, if a bag had 3 red marbles, 4 green, and 5 blue, students can randomly draw one marble. Say they draw green followed by a red.. They can compute the probability of drawing a green and then a red from the bag.
Playing Cards
Playing cards can be used in the statistics classroom to help compute probability. Students can randomly draw cards from the standards 52 card deck, and find the probability of drawing that exact draw. They can also use cards to demonstrate the concept of permutations and combinations.