Day 146 Histograms Introduction

6th Grade Math Standards: Display numerical data in plots on a number line, including dot plots, histograms, and box plots. MA.4.a. Read and interpret circle graphs.

The Objective: Analyze a histogram; construct a histogram

Quote of the Day: I read aloud page 211 - 214 from How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age. The pages talked about how a fifteen year old went from taking 52 minutes to get all of his multiplication facts to under 8 minutes in a month through effort and celebrating minor victories.

Agenda:

1. May Mayhem
2. Review Box Plot Homework - done with the clickers
3. Which set of numbers does not belong?
4. Introductions to Histograms
5. Histogram Practice

The Assessment: Today was a little disjointed. The May Mayhem took longer than I anticipated because students were not recognizing how to find equivalent expressions using the distributive property. In one class only 5% of students got this concept. That forced me into reteach mode. Overall the top scoring in each class came to 85% getting the meters per second question, 95% getting the volume of a fractional edge rectangular prism, 43% getting the distributive property question, and 73% getting the algebraic expression question. By the time we got done May Mayhem in classes plus going over the homework, there were only ten minutes left.

In one class, the kids did a problem out of the book for an assessment. In another I simply went up and down rows as they worked on the histogram practice linked here. The trouble overall on the day was that I did not leave much time for us to truly master the construction of the histogram so that was not truly assessed.

Glass Half-Full Take: I enjoyed the discussion the class had regarding which of four sets of numbers  does not belong. The numbers represented ages of people and were as follows:

Set A: 8 -12
Set B: 43 - 47
Set C: 199 - 203
Set D: 30 - 35

Depending how it is argued, any of the groups do not belong. I was a little surprised that more students did not reach this conclusion - or at least pick more than one data set. Most went for Set D and argued that the range was 5 in that data set and 4 in the rest.

One Regret: In my first class, we were creating histograms before we were analyzing histograms. I think it's essential to analyze first because otherwise the intervals is a wall that impedes students from getting to comprehension.