happy new year and welcome to…

“Setting the Tone from Day 1”CAUSEweb Activity Webinar January 24, 2012

based on Lesser/Kephart paper in Nov. 2011 J. of Statistics Education(partial support from NSF DUE-0618861)

Dr. Larry Lesser, Professor

The University of Texas at El Paso

instructional cycle* Lesser & Kephart (2011)

Problem is presented

Initial Individual Reflection

Small Group (3-4 students each) discussionWhole Class Discussion (with instructor as facilitator and co-learner)

optional: further individual reflection

* variation on “think-pair-share” or

“1-2-4-whole group” structures

a good problem…• Has context relevant to student backgrounds

• Has minimal (math) prerequisites

• Is efficient to pose• Is efficient to compute (e.g., simple numbers; Lesser, 2011)

• Will be revisited/deepened later in course

• Is open to multiple approaches, representations, interpretations

• Stimulates habits of mind/questioning

• Shows statistics as “numbers with a context”

• May reveal a misconception

For the following problems…

• Try it yourself

• Try it as you imagine your students might

• Consider what assumptions are being (perhaps implicitly) made

• Try generating multiple approaches

• Reflect upon any big picture lessons or themes about taking/doing statistics this problem raises

Who did better, Amy or Bob?(Lesser 2001, 2011)

fall fall spring spring

TESTS Amy Bob Amy Bob

passed 3 1 2 3

failed 5 2 1 2

taken 8 3 3 5

“Average Class Size” Exploration (Lesser, 2009, 2010a)

185 students are divided among 7 rooms as: 20, 20, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 35.

What would you say is the ‘average class size’?

simpler substitute dataset:

20 students divided among 4 rooms as:

3, 3, 4, and 10

Which of these 5 countries did best at the 2008 Summer Olympics? (Isaacson, 2011)

Nation Gold Silver Bronze

 Australia  14 15 17

 Bahamas 0 1 1

 China  51 21 28

 United States  36 38 36

 Zimbabwe  1 3 0

How to adapt for:

• Shorter periods

• Larger classes

• Other days of the course

• Other courses