Model Eliciting Activities Joan Garfield, Robert C. delMas, and Andrew Zieffler

Welcome & Overview Participate in a Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) Discussion of activity General Characteristics of MEAs How to use MEAs Other MEAs for statistics

iPod MEA Form groups of three to four (laptops?) Part 1: Read, answer questions alone (5 min.) Part 2: Work as a group, develop a model (30 min.) Part 3: Test the model with new data (10 min.) Part 4: Write/Present solutions (15 min.)

Model Eliciting Activities (MEAs) Open-ended problems with no clear solution Require teamwork to solve Engage students in statistical reasoning and thinking Require invention and testing of models to solve real problems Motivate and prepare students to learn relevant course content

Six Principles of MEAs Model construction principle: allow for model creation The reality principle: problems and solutions must be meaningful and relevant. Self-assessment principle: students must be able to self-assess their solutions. Model documentation principle: reveal and document their thinking processes Model share-ability and reusability principle: solutions easily adapted to other situations and usable by others Effective prototype principle: model produced will be as simple as possible yet mathematically significant

Activities that Follow an MEA Expand ideas from MEA (e.g., randomness, random samples, random sequences) Extend to related statistical ideas (e.g., simulation, null model) Links to materials at CATALST website http://www.tc.umn.edu/~catalst/ AIMS activities CSI activities SERC: additional MEAs