Day 127: Mean, Median & Mode

6th Grade Math Standards: 6.SP.5 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.

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.
The Learning Objective: Determine the central tendency of a data set with three different measures.

Agenda:

1. Students work on their weekly quiz
2. Have the students silently group themselves by birthday from youngest to oldest
3. Notes on central tendency (mean, median and mode)
4. Classwork examples
5. Pass out and start the homework

The Assessment: I went around the room to check how students did with the classwork. The students also got back last week's weekly quiz. I'm convinced that deciding what deal is better if you have two closely linked rates is a problem that you can spend an entire week on. Here's one sold answer from a student.

Glass Half-Full Take: Today was a lighter day for me as I only actually taught one class. I took a half-personal day after flying in from Chicago and not landing until 2:00 this morning. That said, the one class I taught I felt pretty refreshed and will likely have more energy in the coming days with the opportunity to get away.

One Regret: I wish that I had time to go over last week's weekly quiz. I didn't really build that into today's lesson and this week's weekly quiz is somewhat connected to that.