Data and Probability

We have now finished up week 11 of math class and yet again, I am amazed at the various ways in which we can introduce mathematical topics and procedures to our students.  It is my goal to try and make math interesting and exciting, as I hope to change the negative perceptions about mathematics, to positive ones within my classroom.

In class this week, Pat brought in a jar filled with Oreos. I was immediately intrigued because I knew that we were about to engage in a fun activity that involved food.  For this activity we were supposed to use estimation to make an education guess on how many cookies were in the jar. We passed the jar around the class and people came up with their own unique strategies on estimating how many cookies were in the jar. Some people counted the cookies on one face-side of the jar and then used multiplication for the other sides of the cube to come up with an answer. Others, estimated how many Oreo’s came in a pack and tried to use that total to determine how many packs of Oreo’s Pat had added to the jar. Those are just some of the many strategies students used to come up with a number. Once everyone came up with their estimation, we placed our answers on a stem and leaf plot to visually see how our data was collected. Through this data, we could see the statistics of all of our numbers, such as the average number, the median, and the mode. I think that this activity was great because we use estimation all of the time in our daily lives and sometimes I think that we don’t even realize that we are doing it. I think that it’s important to show our students the many ways that we use estimation in our daily lives and give them useful examples like this.

Data collection is an important skill to possess. The textbook discusses the importance of organizing and sorting your data and creating appropriate questions when collecting your data, so that you gather your information in the best way. The image below shows the use of linking cubes to looks for patterns, make predictions, make comparisons, and make decisions. In class we have used linking cubes a lot to work through mathematical problems. I think that manipulatives such as linking cubes are a great way for students to engage in data collection because they are able to physically see and work with the different types of data that these cubes can represent. 

While browsing YouTube I found a fun and interesting video about Yoda and how he is teaching young Luke Skywalker to have a grown mindset. In the video Yoda tells Luke to “unlearn what you have learned”. Luke replies saying, “ Alright, ill give it a try” and Yoda says “ No! Try not! Do or do not! There is no try”. This scene is very relative to my experience in our class thus far. I feel like I have had to unlearn some of the “old” ways of math and I have had to have a growth mindset to tell myself I can do this!