Module 1

Categorical Data

Before I looked at the actual data, I tried to think of the 3 most likely categories of people that someone would want to talk to. I came up with a politician, a celebrity, and a religious icon. My categories were pretty accurate but it was clear that I would need to add a few more.

Bar Graph of Data

Pie Chart of Data

It was surprisingly difficult to come up with groups to completely classify the data. I feel like many of the people who were mentioned could fit into multiple categories. For example, you could argue that all of the politicians are also celebrities. Many of the celebrities and the religious figures were also humanitarians. I tried to classify each of them to what I would consider to be their primary categorization. There were a few people listed who are fictional. I did not consider this possibility when I was initially brainstorming categories.

After looking at the data already provided, it could be interesting to ask what exactly it is that people would want to talk to the people about. For example, I said that I would want to talk to Steve Irwin, who I classified as a celebrity. I would not want to talk to him about life as a celebrity but about his conservation efforts.  

ARTICLE

My own introduction to statistics and data was very different from the lessons described in the article. My experience was much more structured and less interactive. The data used always came from the book or a worksheet. I also do not remember the questions going as deep as they seem to be in the analytic step.  I found that extra content to be very interesting! After the initial sorting, distribution and analysis of the data they plotted, questions were asked that could change different variables of the chart. It may not really pertain to the original problem but it encourages students to think critically.

How Many Pockets

I really enjoyed this video. It is one thing to read about a lesson, but I think it is really helpful to see it happening. I liked the way that the student's were arranged in a circle. This allowed all of the students to have comfortable visibility of the board, the teacher, and their peers all at once. The teacher did a great job of never out right giving the students the answers. Instead she lets the students talk it out themselves. At one point a student said "5 is bigger." You could tell that she had the right idea she was just having trouble articulating it. Instead of telling her she was wrong and rewording the answer, the teacher allowed another student to add on to the answer. Overall I think this was a very successful lesson. 

Annenberg

1.What do you think of when you hear the word statistics?

   I immediately think of averages and percentages

2.Think of a general question that could be answered with statistics. Now think carefully
about the four components of the statistical process. How could you carry out each step in
order to answer your question? 

  Would people rather speak to a well known man or woman?

First you would have to survey the class asking them what well known person would they most like to have a conversation with. Once the survey is done you can sort their replies into two categories, male and female. Knowing the amount of responses that were female and the overall number of responses you can easily solve this problem. 

3. What type of shoe is the most common for 3rd graders?
The sample would have to consist of both male and female students and students of diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds. It should also be reasonably sized. An example of a sample that would not be representative would be 5 girl students from a class of 30, intended to represent the 3rd grade as a whole.

Practice

While I was grocery shopping this weekend I decided to put my categorization skills to the test. I settled on two different types of categorization and they actually yielded similar results!

 The first way that I categorized people were by shoe type. I made 4 categories: sneakers, flip flops, sandals, and other (heels, loafers, etc).
I found that the women who were wearing flip flops and sneakers were more likely to have children with them. In contrast the women wearing other shoes were typically without children. This classification did not seem to affect men.

I then classified people by hair style. I made 4 categories: up-do, long hair, short hair, and unusually colored hair. I found that people with the longer hair and unusually colored hair were younger. People with short hair and up-do's tended to have children with them. Again, men were fairly unaffected by these categorizations.