1. Conducting statistical investigations to develop learner statistical thinking

2. Introduction

3. Rethinking Junior Statistics
What do we wish students better understood in the senior school?
We don’t have time in the senior school to teach big foundational ideas.
Not so assessment driven
Opportunity to teach BIG IDEAS
A lot more freedom and flexibility

4. Key statistical concepts
types of variables (science department)
shape and distribution
strong interpretation skills of dot plots and box-and-whisker plots
samples and populations, sampling variability and making an inference
develop insight into the process of conducting a statistical investigation

5. Senior learners need to be able to:
conduct their own investigation/ experiment
make insightful comments about the results of others' investigations
It is difficult for learners to make insightful comments without first appreciating the complexities of conducting an investigation

6. I am keen for the junior learners in work in groups to conduct their own investigations to help them realise that there are different ways of collecting and recording data and that decisions made in the planning stage will impact on the results found.

7. Assessment task want them to learn big ideas
don’t need accurate results
assessment-for-learning

8. data collected from sample, make inference about population
Teaching progression
1 group
“typical”
2 groups
“compare”
data collected from population
9Maths?
data collected from sample, make inference about population
10Maths

9. Year 9 to focus on 1 group of learners
what they can see about that 1 group of learners
what is “typical”
“I wonder what the typical number of letters in a Year 9 learner’s name is”
make an inference about all Year 9s in context
eg. My class is really sporty so our class’s results will be better than the general Year 9 results

10. Year 10 to compare 2 different groups of learners
samples need to come from 2 different populations
Year 8 learners vs Year 10 learners
make an inference about the populations in context

11. Teaching sequence
PPDAC – where everything fits in. I like to see big picture first
Start with categorical. Bar graphs or pictograms
Shape/ distribution is a key focus of this topic
Need to teach shape before calculations
Pip Arnold’s stuff on Census at Schools

12. Graphs - in Context
want learners to realise that each dot on the dot plot represents something within that context
eg. someone’s shoe length,
hand span

13. Teaching Activity How many different countries have you travelled to?
write answer on piece of paper
physically form a line ordering counts
find 5 point summary

14. Teaching Activity draw dot plot and box-and-whisker
each dot is a particular learner’s count
median is …
every dot has a story!

15. Teaching Sequence 2 weeks teaching first Start investigations
2 split lessons
Collect data

16. Investigation conditions
Problem and Plan written collaboratively in groups
Data collected collaboratively in groups
Analysis and Conclusion written individually under test conditions, open book

17. Choose a Question
Try to come up with some examples of questions students might like to investigate
Identify any issues they would face in trying to collect appropriate data
Decide whether or not these issues could be addressed

18. Questions What type of music do you like? How old are you?
How much time do you spend playing sport?
How long can you hold a wall sit for?
What is the length of your foot?
How many windows do you have in your house?
How sporty are you?

19. 9Maths: Data collection
Collected data from their own class in groups

20. 10Maths: Data Collection
Needed to collect data from 2 different Year levels
Organised a timetable where each Year 10 class paired up with a Year 8 class
Year 10’s practised collecting data from their own class first
Even if not fully ready to complete assessment task, still stick to timetable
Group Stations

21. Analysis Hand-drawn graphs – no technology
Absent students were given data by their group members

22. Conclusion
wrote their conclusions
handout

23. Comments A lot of buy-in from learners High quality work
Writing in context
Insightful comments
Does this make sense to me?
Not enough time on sampling variability

24. Probability
No test
Fun and challenging activities

25. Questions

26. Thank you!