Day 151 Mean Absolute Deviation Day 3

Grade 6 Math Standards: Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context, such as by:
a. Reporting the number of observations.
b. Describing the nature of the attribute under investigation, including how it was measured and its units of measurement.
c. Giving quantitative measures of center (median and/or mean) and variability (interquartile range and/or mean absolute deviation), as well as describing any overall pattern and any striking deviations from the overall pattern with reference to the context in which the data were gathered.
d. Relating the choice of measures of center and variability to the shape of the data distribution and the context in which the data were gathered.

The Objective: Compare the mean absolute deviation of two different data sets

Quote of the Day: “Having faults means you’re human; you’re alive and breathing. There’s nothing wrong with having faults so long as you work conscientiously to correct them. How hard you work at correcting your faults reveals your character.” - John Wooden

Agenda:

1. Math May Mayhem
2. MAD HW Review
3. NY Yankees Salary
4. Pop Quiz!

The Assessment: The pop quiz was graded in class by the students. I told them that I trusted them to grade their own papers.

The Math Mayhem went fairly well today. Some of the answers that students gave for the question about the lawns and hours were phenomenal. It was good to get some diversity of answers as well on this question.

Glass Half-Full Take: I have not given a pop quiz all year. I did not officially count what we did in class today as a pop quiz, but it was great to see the results of the pop quiz were overwhelmingly positive. I also had a heightened sense of urgency from students to make sure they got the material. Granted this leads to bad outcomes too (that they are learning math for the grade rather than the sake of learning math), but I have had an increasingly hard time rallying the students of late to put forth their best effort in terms of sustained focus. I got this with the pop quiz. I promised students that did well that I would add points to their weekly quiz (again something that is somewhat bad but I didn't want to seem like a villain to students who did well).

One Regret: This day was the perfect example of why standards based report cards rock. If students could have gotten a "4" for the mean absolute deviation standard after they proved they found the mean absolute deviation it would be an appropriate grade. Some students demonstrated mastery today and I did not reward them for it because we have to give quizzes on certain days and the policy we have as teachers is that we always give study guides before tests and quizzes (a policy that needs to be looked at in the future).