ED 321 LESSON PLAN 4

OUTCOMES: (WI Teacher Standards #1, 2)

State or district standard:

Common Core Standards, Mathematics, Grade 7, Statistics and Probability

Use random sampling to draw inferences about a population

Instructional objective(s):

Students will use their understanding of measures of central tendency to find mean, median, mode, and

range of a set of data. (Application)

Students will identify the best measure of central tendency. (Application)

ASSESSMENT: (WI Teacher Standard #8)

Did students confidently participate in the example problems discussed in class? (In-class observation)

Did students actively participate in the Practicing Mean, Median, and Mode in-class activity and

thoughtfully and accurately respond to questions posed? (Collect worksheets at the end of class to look

over for accuracy.)

Can students identify at least one thing that they learned at the end of the lesson? (Exit cards)

MATERIALS NEEDED: (WI Teacher Standard #3)

Notes to be shown on the overhead

In-Class Activity: Practicing Mean, Median, and Mode worksheets

TOTAL TIME NEEDED: 48 minutes

PROCEDURES: (WI Teacher Standard #7)

Introduction (3 minutes):

Ask the students to think carefully about how many minutes, on average, they spend doing homework

on a typical school night. Students should raise their hands when they have answer.

Call on 8 students to record their answers on the whiteboard.

Explain to students that we will come back to this data to do some examples after we take notes.

Steps for instruction:

Notes (10 minutes)

o Go over the key terms from this lesson including mean, median, mode, range, measures of

central tendency, and outlier.

o If there is confusion, remind students that the terms will make more sense after we examine

some examples.

Examples (10 minutes)

o Go over how to calculate mean, median, mode, and range using the data collected at the

beginning of class.

o Invite students to come up to the board to help with calculations.

o Be sure to address the concept of outliers. If there is a not an outlier in the student’s data, invent

one to talk about.

o Discuss which measure of central tendency would best describe the data in this situation.

In-Class Activity (15 minutes)

o Students may work with a partner of their choosing or alone if they would prefer.

o Students must ask 10 classmates for their heights and convert the data into inches, then find the

mean, median, mode, and range of the data. They must also discuss how the addition of an

outlier affects the mean and choose the best measure of central tendency for their data.

Discussion (5 minutes)

o If time allows, re-group as a class and discuss the activity. Although each student may have

different data, we can still discuss the significance of each measure.

o Discuss how the data would be affected by the addition of the Jolly Green Giant to the class (an

outlier).

o Discuss why the mean would not be the best measure of central tendency in this situation.

Strategies for students requiring additional assistance: (WI Teacher Standard # 3)

Students who have trouble with note taking will be provided with a fill-in-the-blank version of the notes.

Students who prefer written definitions of concepts will have their notes to refer to for assistance in

understanding the key concepts. Students who prefer mathematical examples will have the examples

discussed in class to look back on.

Students will be able to choose whether to work with a partner or alone on the in-class activity.

Closure (5 minutes):

Hand out index cards.

On one side of the index card, have students write at least one thing that they learned from the lesson

today. Also, have students record any concepts they are still struggling with/confused about.

On the other side of the index card, have students write at least one thing they liked or disliked about the

format of the lesson or the teaching methods used today.

Students must turn in their index cards before leaving class.

Name: Katie Miszewski Content Area: Mathematics

Date: 11/8/10 Grade Level: 7th