Sdm07 Ttv Frequency L Story

15/09/07 Simon Mills 2007

Does every tube of Smarties have the same number of each

colour?

The Learning Story behind Our ICT Mediated Investigation for

Teachers TV

Finally Published by Simon Mills 2007


Session One

• We talked about frequency and what it means– Learning about Frequency in maths is about learning to use special

tools to help us measure and record • How often something happens• How many times things can be seen or done.

• We talked about how ICT was a useful tool, for helping us to collect and present data

• We collected and recorded some data about sweets, using an ICT tool called a spreadsheet to help us create another tool called a frequency table.


• We made a frequency table using Excel tm

• We discussed whether there was anything special about the data we had collected, and whether our challenge was fair or not. We thought:

• Some people had less letters in their names• Some people rushed• Some people had smaller writing• Some people started later than others because their pens didn’t work

This could change how fair or unfair an investigation or experiment might be…

Our first challenge How many times could we write our first names in a minute?


• The challenge was fairish because – we all were given the same amount of time– all had the same task– had the challenge to complete the task

• It could have been fairer if– We all had the same word to write– We All had equipment that worked at the beginning

• To be fair we needed to try to control the things that can change, just like in a science experiment.

So Was our Challenge Fair?


Mr Mills doesn’t think it is fair! He is sure…

• His favourite orange sweets are not so frequent in the tubes he buys as his other less favourite sweets.

• He always seems to get less of his favourite flavour than the others

Our problem is to help find out if his fears are true.


•We sorted and counted the sweets in our tubes

•We created an Exceltm Workbook

•We entered the frequency of each colour in a frequency table we made in our workbook

•As we worked we began to talk about what we were seeing, and some of us had theories of our own.

In our first session we were given a tube of his favourite

sweets each.


Columns?• Some of us began by presenting our sorting and grouping in a really interesting way…. Why was it so interesting?


In Session Two we talked about

• What frequency meant again• We talked about some photographs of the way we had sorted

our sweets for counting• We talked about how one way of sorting our sweets might help

us compare frequencies more easily

• They were like graphs.• They were in columns, we could see how many more or less there were• It would be less easy to loose count, when we worked out frequencies• They were a bit like pictograms or block charts

• We compared our column chart sorting with bar charts, special tools for presenting frequencies.


Columns?

Why might these be such interesting and useful ways of sorting and presenting our

frequencies?


0

2

4

6

8

10

12

orange yellow blue green purple pink red brown

orange

yellow

blue

green

purple

pink

red

brown

Colour Frequencyorange 3yellow 9blue 4green 10purple 5pink 3red 6brown 4

Charts

SDM 2004


Then We:

• Went back to Excel• We learned how to use the chart wizard, to make bar

and column charts from our frequency tables• We went away in our pairs to present our data using

the chart wizard.


Some of us decided:

• It would be good if our bars and columns were the same colours as the sweets we had counted.

• It would make it easier for our readers to see which colour was which.

• It would be handy to have a title, this would

• Tell our readers what the chart was all about• Help them to know how to read the chart• Tell them what was going on with the information we were displaying.

• We learned how to do this, and by playing some of us even learned how to recolour other parts of our chart as well.


As we were using the spreadsheet tools:

• Some of us helped other groups by showing and helping them to change their charts like we had done.

• Used the Interactive whiteboard, to model our new skills to the rest of the class

• We talked about what we were doing, and why we were doing it.


Session 3Titles and labels on a chart

are really useful…

• Why?• What makes a good title or label for a chart?• What might these charts be about?


Frequency table



pictogram



Number of Different Coloured Beans in 28 Tubes of Sweets

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

210

220

blue pink green yellow orange red brown purple

Colour of Beans

Fre

qu

en

cy

of

Be

an

s

blue

pink

green

yellow

orange

red

brown

purple


So does every tube of sweets have an equal frequency of each colour

was Mr Mills right?Could he ever get the same number

of each colour?

??* ??*


The Share (proportion) of Different Coloured Sweets in 28 Tubes

blue

pink

green

yellow

orange

red

brown

purple

Where Might WeGo Next Time?


The Share (proportion) of Different Coloured Sweets in 28 Tubes

14%13%

17%

16%13%

5%

10%

12%

blue

pink

green

yellow

orange

red

brown

purple


Useful Interactive Teaching Resources for Data Handling

• Interactive Teaching Resources: This website is home to a collection of award winning software. I would recommend this whole suite of object based tools, to anyone using, Interactive whiteboards to teach primary mathematics. Many of the tools can be sampled online too.

• National Primary Framework For Mathematics, an emerging collection of Excel, Flash and IWB Tool Suite Interactive Teaching Resources are available for use online or for download by following the breadcrumb trail, mathematics, planning, year group, resources.

http://www.interactive-resources.co.uk/

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primaryframeworks/mathematics/

Technology

Sdm07 Ttv Frequency L Story