                                                         
Statistics
and the
Common Core
Activities and Ideas for the Common Math Classroom
Dave Ferris
Noblesville High School
Noblesville, IN
dave_ferris@nobl.k12.in.us
www.noblestatman.com
Table of Contents
Why Common Core? 20
CCSS Mathematical Practices 23
Marzano’s 10 Coginitive Skills from CCSS: 23
Trick or Treat! 24
Random Rectangles 26
Census at School Survey 28
Slope Interpretation 31
Mean as Least Squares 33
Measuring Lab & Other Data 34
Comparing Distributions 41
Scatterplot Interpretation 45
Dice and the Transitive Property 48
Simulation Lab 53
Jelly Blubbers 56
Alf Landon: Statistical Infamy 57
Teacher Notes 64
Other resources: 83
Why Common Core?
“…the totality of standards is both unteachable by mortal teachers and too much for all but the most eager and diligent students to learn.”
--Zalman Usiskin
What Should Not Be in the Algebra and Geometry
Curricula of Average College-Bound Students?
Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 100, 2007
In 1999 Kendall and Marzano identified 200 standards and 3,093 benchmarks from the 1989 Education Summit. They estimated 15,465 hours to cover them all vs. 9,042 instructional hours available
“Virtually every major public issue…depends on data, projections, inferences, and the kind of systematic thinking that is at the heart of quantitative literacy.”
“Quantitative literacy is both more than and different from mathematics.”
“Numeracy is the new literacy of our age… an innumerate citizen today is as vulnerable as the illiterate peasant of Gutenberg’s time.”
Lynn Arthur Steen, in “Numeracy: The New Literacy for a Data-Drenched Society”
Why Statistics?
“Statistics is a methodological discipline. It exists not for itself, but rather to offer to other fields of study a coherent set of ideas and tools for dealing with data. The need for such a discipline arises from the omnipresence of variability.” (Moore and Cobb, 1997)
A major objective of statistics education is to help students develop statistical thinking. Statistical thinking, in large part, must deal with this omnipresence of variability; statistical problem solving and decision making depend on understanding, explaining, and quantifying the variability in the data.
It is this focus on variability in data that sets apart statistics from mathematics.
GAISE document
“Every educated person should be acquainted with statistical reasoning.”
David Moore, Statistics: Concepts and Controversies
In short, Statistics is the study of v____________________.
Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) Report
(There is a lot of good perspective in this document about teaching and learning statistics.)
Statistical problem solving is an investigative process that involves four components:
I. Formulate Questions
• clarify the problem at hand
• formulate one (or more) questions that can be answered with data
II. Collect Data
• design a plan to collect appropriate data
• employ the plan to collect the data
III. Analyze Data
• select appropriate graphical and numerical methods
• use these methods to analyze the data
IV. Interpret Results
• interpret the analysis
• relate the interpretation to the original question
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