Chapters 11 and 12 deal with content related to data analysis and probability.
1. How does the task presented in class (examining fair tests) compare to the content covered in chapter 11?
2. What are you seeing related to data analysis and probability in your own classroom settings?
3. Examining the SC early childhood content standards (K-3) for data analysis and probability. How do the state standards compare to chapters 11 and 12?
1. How does the task presented in class (examining fair tests) compare to the content covered in chapter 11?
ReplyDeleteAfter the introduction to Chapter 11 in the text, the first statement is “The first goal in the Data Analysis and Probability standard of Principles and Standards says that students should “formulate questions that can be addressed with data and collect, organize, and display relevant data to answer them.” In class, we brainstormed questions about our wrists and decided upon “How wide is your wrist around?” The text repeatedly made it clear that the teacher shouldn’t focus on teaching the mechanics of graphing and that graphing should be learned in the context of answering a question about data. Also according to the text, “the easiest questions to deal with are those that can be answered by each class member’s contributing one piece of data” which is what we did in class. Measuring a personal body part would be meaningful for a young child. We also collectively came up with our own rules which made it more meaningful and made us more invested in the results.
2. What are you seeing related to data analysis and probability in your own classroom settings?
In my kindergarten class, the teacher and students are graphing the letters in student names. The teacher cuts apart the letters in the name of the “Star of the Week.” The “star” keeps the first letter and hands out the other letters to students seated on the rug. The “star” and the selected students stand at the front of the room and display the letters as everyone spells out the name. The teacher tapes the letters on the graph, and students make comments about the graph (which names have the same number of letters, which name is longest, etc.).
3. Examining the SC early childhood content standards (K-3) for data analysis and probability. How do the state standards compare to chapters 11 and 12?
The content in the text and the standards seem fairly consistent (assuming organize and interpret data in K-6 refers to categorization/classification). What was typically unclear in the text is when concepts should be introduced. For example, in SC standards probability is loosely introduced in grade 1, is expanded in grade 2, and is specifically mentioned in grade 3. I got the impression from the text that probability could be introduced in kindergarten and that students should have a deeper understanding by grade 3 (e.g., long-run results are better predictors of probability than short-run results).
1-6.4 Predict on the basis of data whether events are likely or unlikely to occur.
2-6.4 Predict on the basis of data whether events are more likely or less likely to occur.
3-6: The student will demonstrate through the mathematical processes an understanding of organizing, interpreting, analyzing and making predictions about data, the benefits of multiple representations of a data set, and the basic concepts of probability.
3-6.6 Predict on the basis of data whether events are likely, unlikely, certain, or impossible to occur.
3-6.7 Understand when the probability of an event is 0 or 1.