Data Management and Probability

     Data management and probability are perhaps two of the most practical yet sometimes forgotten topics in math, but this became the focus of my mathematics education this week. We learned about how to teach students to understand the probability of situations and how to take this information then plot it on a graph. In order to understand these two topics we performed an activity which combines the two. We first estimated the number of Oreo cookies in a jar, wrote down our estimate, then placed our estimate onto a stem and leaf plot. With all the estimates laid out onto the plot we could determine the mean and mode of this data set. This interested me because I did not really understand the purpose of a stem and leaf plot, but this activity demonstrated its practical uses. I believe that when teachers do this it grabs the attention of the student and helps them remember what they learned because they can trace the example back in their memory in order to remember this topic. I know that when I was student I learned at my best when teachers provided me with practical examples of how what we were learning being applied to real world scenarios.

     We also began to perform some activities to exercise our knowledge of probability. For example, we rolled dice until we got to every number on the dice in one set. This demonstrates to students how many variations can come in this particular situation as one group only needed 12 tries while another needed 36. Games are an excellent way to get students’ attention and can be an excellent starting point for an educational conversation. For instance, if I was doing this activity with my students then I would discuss with them the odds of receiving a certain number. The textbook reading also provided a number of interesting ways to teach this topic using manipulatives. One was a spinning wheel labelled with various colours and the students would have to predict the probability of landing on a particular colour. Cards are also another fun way to teach this task, as the textbooks shows us, because it allows for discussion on different scenarios and the probability for each. I think that this would really grab the attention of the student because it is an object that they have seen frequently, one that is familiar to them.

     One deep idea that truly resonated with me this week is that we need to teach our students skills that will help them in everyday life. One of these skills is estimation, a skill that many teachers tend to neglect. I remember how so many of my teachers taught me about formulas and how important they were to memorize, but let’s face it, this is not what we are doing in our everyday lives. Students need to learn how to estimate and predict certain scenarios in order to make educated decisions. As teachers, we need to show students how to perform this process and how to analyze a scenario to make the best decision.