This
week we were responsible for a nice little chunk out of the Making Math Meaningful textbook. We were
required to read three chapters, 19, Data Display and Analysis, 20, Collecting
and Describing Data, and 21, which was focused on Probability. As indicated in
the title, chapter 19 is all about collecting, displaying and analyzing data.
The textbook goes into detail explaining the many different types of graphs
that can be used to collect data, and also the pros and cons of using each
different type of graph. We also touched on this idea in class; there is not
one type of graph that you should always use. This is something that I think I
may have forgotten from my days of creating graphs in school. To be honest, I
forgot about just how many different types of graphs we were taught about when
we were younger. However, Patricia refreshed our memories and explained to us
that different graphs should be used in different situations. For example, a
line graph is a good way to show an increase in something over time, such as
temperature throughout the day.
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| bootmi. 2012. graph. [online image] http://bit.ly/1MAPrLC |
To help demonstrate this we did a fun little
activity where Pat brought in a tub of cookies and asked us all to guess how
many cookies were in the tub. We then plotted our answers on a stem and leaf
graph to create a visual. The use of a graph to display the information was
useful as it provided a visual display that made the information about the
guesses easily understandable. Patricia then introduced us to a great resource
called www.tinkerplots.com. This is a great website in which you can enter data
and the program displays for you all of the different patterns that are within
the data, as well as automatically calculates things such as mean, median, and
mode. I think that this resource would be great to use in a class after you
have your students collect some data. After inputting their data they would be
able to play around with the different filters and discover different patters
in their data. In terms of having students collect data, Patricia gave us some
good advice for the older grades in elementary school. The advice was that in
the older grades, it may be tempting to have your students collect data on a
very elementary topic, such as ice cream flavor, but she advised us that if we
are going to do a data collection unit it needs to be something that will suit
the proper grade level. Patricia did a great job of combing all three chapters
into the activity we did in class regarding the tub of Oreos. It is encouraging
to me to see how she is essentially able to hit many different curriculum
expectations with one activity. For example, with the one Oreo activity she
covered all three chapters we were supposed to read for the day, Data Display,
Collecting Data, and Probability. We demonstrated probability when we tried to
estimate how many cookies there were in the jar. We all used different
techniques to reach our estimate and then by calculating the average we agreed
on the most probable answer.
The learning activities for the day were a good
display of how to use some of these online resources that I have touched on in
earlier Blogs. Padi and Mileena both used gizmos for the presentation and I
thought that it was a good use of the technology in an actual lesson plan and
can see myself using some of the sets on that website to teach mathematical
concepts. In addition, Erlisa used Geometers Sketchpad which I also thought was
a fun use of technology, however, I feel as though the sketchpad would not work
in a younger classroom because it is too much like Microsoft Paint and allows
the kids to just fool around on the computer rather than a website like gizmos
which only allows you to use the program for math work.
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