SCHOOL DIRECTORY
Catholic Education South Australia
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The middle of a data set can be represented and interpreted in different ways.

Inquiry Question

We often use the word “average”, what does it really mean, and how else can we express the middle of data?

Australian Curriculum

Resources

Desmos

Desmos is an interactive graphing calculator that allows teachers to set engaging instruction, exploration and practice tasks. With many existing resources, and capacity to create your own, there are applications for all year levels and topics. 

A collection of activities relating to data displays and calculations of measures of the middle. 

Link: Desmos Distance Learning Year 7

Khan Academy

Link: Constructing Stem and Leaf Plots

Link: Interpreting Stem and Leaf Plots

Two videos to explain how to construct and interpret a stem and leaf plot.

Link: Stem and Leaf Plot Questions

A set of questions to practice the interpretation of stem and leaf plots.

 

Top Drawer Teachers From the AAMT

The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT) Inc., founded in 1966, is the nation’s premier organisation of mathematics educators.  

Link: Statistics Investigations

These resources are structured to give students the opportunity to investigate meaningful, context-based questions using data. An investigation usually follows a pathway – the question, data collection, data representation, summarising of the data and ultimately a conclusion. These can all be adapted for remote learning scenarios and embedded within the Learning Management System. 

 

The Improving Mathematics Education in Schools (TIMES) Project

The TIMES project, by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, provides modules that are written for teachers. Each module contains a discussion of a component of the mathematics curriculum from early primary up to the end of Year 10.  

Link: Statistical Inquiry Module

This module outlines a statistical inquiry, that can be adapted to suit the remote learning context and give opportunities for students to collaborate online, or, to collect data from their homes. 

 

reSolve

The reSolve teaching resources provide exemplary materials from Years F to 10. They put into practice the elements of the reSolve Protocol and promote fluency, deep understanding, strategic problem solving, and mathematical reasoning. A number of the resources have been made by South Australian teachers, and all are aligned with the Australian Curriculum. 

Link: Resolve inquiry sequence

Students examine trends in the names of students in the class, as well as trends in popular names from 2017 and 1957. They look at data associated with these names and decide whether the mean, median or mode might be a suitable measure of central tendency. They develop their skills with spreadsheets by carrying out statistical calculations. This task needs to occur after students are familiar with the concepts and application of measures of the middle and should be able to work on spreadsheets with some confidence. 

 

Diagnostic Questions

Diagnostic questions are designed to help identify, and crucially understand students' mistakes and misconceptions in an efficient and accurate manner. In a remote learning environment, these questions are vital for checking on progress. At crucial moments in a lesson, set a diagnostic question or two to quickly ascertain the progress of the class, and importantly, understand misconceptions quickly, which can be hard to achieve in a remote environment. You will need to sign in (for free) to access. 

This set of questions relates to statistics. After a period of content delivery or inquiry, set one or two diagnostic questions, to each member of the class via the Learning Management System, collect the results and identify any student or group of students that have misconceptions that you can then address. 

Link: Diagnostic Questions set