Day 124: Statistical Questions

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.

The Learning Objective: Create a statistical question, differentiate between statistical and non-statistical questions

Quote of the Day: "Thinking of yourself as the best is one of the biggest reasons successful people stumble and fail." - Rick Pitino

Agenda:

1. Self-Assessment of inequalities quiz
2. Review quiz by having students ask any pertinent questions
3. MCAS Math March Madness Day 6
4. I gave all students a post it note and asked them to write down how many minutes it usually takes them before they give up. Once the students had the number written, students posted that note to the board. I then asked for three volunteers to organize that information for us into a line plot (although I didn't use that term). As these students organized the information I did vocabulary pepper with the rest of the class.
5. Statistical questions notes
6. Statistical question examples
7. The class surveyed their classmates with a statistical question they had created
8. Ticket to leave 

The Assessment: I went around the classroom and checked all students statistical questions before they surveyed their classmates. In one class I had a co-teacher so I corrected and returned all exit tickets today. I will give feedback to students on the other exit tickets tomorrow.

Students were also assessed with the March Madness. Today our top scores were 43% for the coordinate plane question (the wording wasn't consistent on the Powerpoint and the assignment linked above so it confused many students), 68% for the question regarding percentage of questions, 74% for dividing fractions (this was 37% in one class), and 62% for the order of ratios. 

Students also assessed themselves using the checklist which was passed out to them on inequalities.

Homework: I had students write a statistical question for something that they are learning in science and a non-statistical question for something they are learning in Africa. Students were given plenty of time to do this in class if needed.

My Glass Half-Full Take: There were several movement breaks provided for students to be out of their seats during the course of the class today. Getting clickers and returning their clickers, posting their sticky note to the board, and surveying classmates. It was an appropriate lesson for bouncy adolescents. 

One Regret: The amount of time to cover statistical and non-statistical questions was too much. I felt like I could have done a social or reflective activity with the students. Instead I ended up simply starting mean with 10 minutes to go in class and that was just a jumbled mess. Tomorrow we will cover mean more extensively anyway, so that might not have been the best way to handle today. 

Link of the Day: This is the best way to get professional development.