Day 138: Variation & Central Tendency Study Guide

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.SP.1 Recognize a statistical question as one that anticipates variability in the data related to the question and accounts for it in the answers. For example, “How old am I?” is not a statistical question, but “How old are the students in my school?” is a statistical question because one anticipates variability in students’ ages.
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:“George Washington Carver was born in 1864 to slave parents. His earliest recollections were the death of his father and the kidnapping of himself and his mother by slave traders in the last year of the Civil War. Though his mother was never heard from again, a racehorse valued at $300 was given in exchange for him.
Five years later, when freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, Carver faced all the disadvantages associated with poverty, race, and ignorance. He was thirteen years old. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge but no school to quench it, he borrowed an old spelling book and, in effect, became his own teacher. For nine years he worked as a servant, laboring by day and studying by night, until he was financially able to attend Iowa State College.
After graduating in 1894 with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, he joined the school’s faculty, specializing in agricultural research. Carver’s students loved him. His wide knowledge of soils, minerals, birds, and flowers, and his love of nature made study under him a pleasure.” - Napoleon Hill
Question from Yesterday (as always from a student): "Could there be more than one outlier in a data set?"

The Learning Objective: Find the central tendency of a data set; use the appropriate central tendency with data sets that have various distributions; find the range, interquartile range, and outlier of a data set

Assessment: Variation and central tendency study guide done in groups; homework checked for students ability to find the interquartile range, range and outlier

Agenda:

1. Jumpstart using a stem and leaf
2. QSSQ
3. Homework Review
4. Pepper 
5. Study Guide
6. Cheat sheet 

Glass Half-Full: I did not teach stem and leaf prior to today. When students got the jumpstart, I instructed them to work in a group of four and figure out based on the context of the problem how they could find the range, median, etc. "I challenged them by saying I'm not going to help you, but I know you can do it. Take out your homework so I can check it." The response and thinking was tremendous. Only two out of about thirteen groups correctly interpreted the stem and leaf, and both of those groups utilized the key to discover what the numbers in the data set were.

The last group of students got to create their cheat sheet in class. It was amazing to see them work all the way through the bus bell on this individually. The cheat sheet was the size of an index card.

Regrets: I do not like how both the study guide and the quiz give them a number that is missing and the mean is given, but it does not contain a problem in which the students have to make the mean increase or decrease to a certain number. The skill of changing the mean to a certain number is much more meaningful in the real world than having all the data values except for one.

Link of the Day: Visual Pattern #167. Led to a great discussion for sixth graders that need a little more of a challenge. One eighth grade student came up with a different answer than I did this morning at M.A.T.H. Academy.