This data set was created using a random sample from the New Zealand Census At School 2003 database. I choose the 2003 survey as it has some interesting variables that I thought would be of interest to students working at curriculum level 3. The data cards are a mixture of pictures, words and numbers and before students use them they should work out the variables rather than being told what they are. I recommend reading the information about the data cards before using the data cards.
Statistics Day 2019
In this workshop Pip shared with participants some of the work she has been doing for the Beeby award. The focus of the Beeby award work is to “unpack” the different phases of the PPDAC cycle and look at the progression from level 1 through to level 6.
Statistics & Data Science Educator
This is an online journal for teachers and includes lesson plans.
I have an article in the first edition: What pets do the kids in our class have?
Exploring relationships between two quantitative variables – progression part 1
I have been thinking about a progression for scatter graphs for a few months now. The big question for me has been what is the progression of ideas before we get to level 6. Through talking with others and reading extensively the following progression is mooted.
Curriculum level 4- introducing the idea of graphing paired quantitative variables, mostly through examples where we are looking at equivalence e.g. height = arm span. Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian man is full of ideas about equivalent proportions of the human body and can provide a starting point for this sort of exploration. See My Modern Met website, click here for a fuller list of these.
These types of exploration allow students to start to explore using scatter graphs and thinking about where the pairs of data are equal, where one variable is larger than the other and vice versa. Looking at the difference between the two variables can be interesting as well and a useful additional analysis to do.
This video shows how to do this using CODAP.
Further ideas for level 4: this equivalence idea can be used for situations where students start to explore before and after data. For example looking at whether practice and instruction improves throwing and catching ability. Data about students throwing and catching ability is captured at the start of the unit of work. They engage in the unit of work designed to improve their throwing and catching ability. At the end data about their throwing and catching ability is captured. The paired data is shown in a scatter graph, differences are calculated and the difference is graphed. The two graphs provide a richer picture for description that either one by itself.
Introducing the idea of finding the middle for data sets – video
This week while I have been at Concord Consortium in San Francisco I have spent much of my time making videos of recent activities that use CODAP. All of these activities I have been exploring with teachers and students in the work that I do.
Some of the earlier posts were about how to use CODAP:
- Getting started with CODAP
- how to use tables
- how to download data from another source and then upload into CODAP.
This video explores a teaching and learning idea for introducing early ideas of median. For New Zealand teachers this would be an activity I would do with curriculum level 3/4 students as they start to explore quantitative data and are looking for a signal as to the middle of the data that they have. CODAP allows us to put in a movable line and using counts it can be moved until about half the data is sitting on each side. I expand this to looking at the middle 50% of the data values and give examples of how to describe this. As this is aimed at curriculum level 3/4 the examples describe the whole group (Kowhai Whanau Group).
If you want to explore the data set used in the video you can get your own CODAP document to work on by clicking here. The data set used is a made-up data set using a random sample of students from CensusAtSchool.
Introduction to tables in CODAP
This short video looks at three features of using tables in CODAP. The data set used is New Zealand Cricket World Cup data 2019 by player.
Explore the data in CODAP: click here
Getting data into CODAP from Census At School
This short video introduces the new random sampler tool on Census At School and shows how to download the data from Census At School and then import into CODAP to use for statistical analysis.
Getting started with CODAP – video
Spending the week at Concord Consortium, home of CODAP, https://codap.concord.org/ . My challenge this week is to create short screen cast videos of some of the guides I have made for teaching aspects of statistics and probability using CODAP as a tool to support the teaching and learning.
My first video – 3 mins.
Similar information can be found at: Getting started with CODAP google doc
Using CODAP for statistics and probability – a very quick start guide
On Saturday I presented a short topic at the Auckland Mathematics Association morning session on getting started with CODAP (Common Online Data Analysis Platform https://codap.concord.org/).
Notes and links from the session can be found at http://tinyurl.com/AMA-29June2019.
In addition there are three draft activities that I have been working on. All three are part of a bigger lesson sequence so they need to be viewed with that in mind.
The first one looks at introducing measures of centre using CODAP.
The second one looks at a progression for scatter graphs, around curriculum level 5, using Q-plots to see if there is an association or not.
The third one is a look at posing investigative questions.
Making your own data cards
Many of the activities that I have developed over the years have used a simple 5-6 variable data card. The excel spreadsheet “to make simplefive-sixvariable datacards” is set up so that you can drop in your own data, do some rearranging and then copy and transpose into one of the set up tabs. From there you can print off your own data cards.
Instructions are on the first tab. Have fun.