Day 136: Measures of Variation Introduction

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.SP.2. Understand that a set of data collected to answer a statistical question has a distribution which can be described by its center, spread, and overall shape.
6.SP.3. Recognize that a measure of center for a numerical data set summarizes all of its values with a single number, while a measure of variation describes how its values vary with a single number.

Quote of the Day: “One study asked a group of people to be measurably more truthful in their dealings with others. When the study group members told three fewer lies per week than the control group participants, they experienced a variety of statistically significant health-related and emotional benefits.” - Andrew Sobel

Question from Yesterday: "A square with a side length of 8 has an area of 64 square units and a perimeter of 32 units. Is the perimeter of a square always half the area?"

The Learning Objective: Find the range of a data set; determine the appropriate measure of central tendency with and without outliers

Assessment: Students did two problems with a partner and I circumvented the room as they did this; fist of five

Agenda:

1. Self-Assessment from yesterday's quiz
2. Quiz review
3. Partners to find the range of two data sets with identical median, mean, and mode
4. Outliers examples
5. Appropriate measures discussion and practice
6. Lawyers Salary practice

Glass Half-Full: The appropriate measures practice was done best in my last group today. What I did well in this group was let the students establish an argument that two or even all three central tendencies could describe a data set, but then have them go back and converse about one if they had to pick only one out of the three to describe the data set. This opportunity was only ten seconds in length but proved helpful for these students.

Regrets: I wish that I had more examples and more engaging examples (picture for instance) of outliers. I used the Baseball Reference page for Jose Bautista to show how he was hitting only around 15 home runs per season until 2010. There are many more examples out there, but I need to do a better job of being on the lookout. This lesson became boring at times.

Also, I'm pretty sure 2 out of 70 students could tell me what measures of variation are.

Link of the Day: I got to be at one of these things one day.