Lacey Huck CSC 155 Prof.

Bortz 27 March 2014 Lesson Plan: Impact of a superstar OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to us technology tools to plot data, identify lines of best fit, and detect outliers. Students will be able to compare the lines of best fit when one element is removed from a data set, and interpret the results. COMMON CORE STANDARDS: CCSS.Math.Practice.MP5: Use appropriate tools strategically. CCSS.Math.Practice.MP7: Look for and make use of structure. SEQUENCE OF INSTRUCTION: Begin the lesson by distributing the Impact of a Superstar activity sheet. The first page of the activity sheet provides some background information about the teams. The data to be entered into the Line of Best Fit activity can be found on the second page of the activity sheet. (In addition, all of the data appears in the Team Data Spreadsheet (Excel), and two columns of data can be pasted from an Excel spreadsheet into the text box in the Line of Best Fit activity, and when the Update Plot button is pressed, the points will appear in the scatterplot.) Following the directions on the activity sheet, students will first work with the data for the Los Angeles Lakers. They will plot the data and then determine the line of best fit for this data. In particular, they will want to take note of the correlation coefficient (r-value) for the regression line. Then, one at a time, students will remove one player's data from the set and determine what effect, if any, the removal of that player's data has on the line of best fit and correlation coefficient. [For the Lakers, students will notice that the correlation coefficient is 0.75 when the data for all players is considered. However, when the data for Kobe Bryant is removed, the r-value increases to 0.95; when the data for any other player is removed, the correlation coefficient either stays the same or decreases. This indicates that the data for Kobe Bryant might be an outlier.] Questions 1-6 on the activity sheet take students step-by-step through the process for removing one player's data and considering the effect on the correlation coefficient. In Question 7, however, students are left to conduct a similar experiment on their own using data for the Detroit Pistons. [In this investigation, students will likely notice that Ben Wallace represents something of an outlier. When the data of any other player is removed, the r-value does not change

significantly; but when the data for Ben Wallace is removed, the correlation coefficient increases from r = 0.85 to r = 0.97.] TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION: Students will utilize Microsoft Excel to attain the data necessary for the line of best fit activity. Students will utilize the online Line of Best Fit applet through the Illuminations website to complete the activity worksheet. Students will also learn to integrate both technological resources by simply copying and pasting data from Excel to the Line of Best Fit applet. Link to Line of Best Fit applet: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=4186 Integrating the use of this technology into the lesson will make the lesson more engaging for students. Not only that, but students will be able to discover relations between data, lines of best fit, correlation coefficients, and outliers. Students will be able to interpret the results and apply what they learned to a real life situation. ASSESSMENT: Student Assessment Collect student work on the Impact of a Superstar Activity worksheet. Wrap-up Questions for students, to be discussed as a group, in class: 1. Does it appear that the data for any player from either team represents an outlier? [It appears that the data for Kobe Bryant represents an outlier for the Lakers, and the data for Ben Wallace represents an outlier for the Pistons.] 2. Some sportswriters have accused Kobe Bryant of being a selfish basketball player; that is, they say he tries to score more than he tries to help his team. Do the results of this investigation seem to support that accusation? Given that Ben Wallace is also an outlier, could he be accused of being selfish, too? [The data suggests that Kobe Bryant scores more points per minute than his teammates. However, it is difficult to determine if that is a result of selfishness. Perhaps he is just a better basketball player. On the other hand, Ben Wallace scores fewer points per minute than his teammates, which would suggest that he is not selfish. The reason he scores fewer points is that he concentrates on rebounding and blocking shots more than scoring.] Teacher Assessment How did technology help students as they attempted to identify outliers? What things were possible with technology that would have taken longer (or perhaps been impossible) without technology? Were students actively engaged in this lesson? If not, are there other data sets that could be used that would be more interesting to your students?
**Many parts of this lesson plan are taken directly from Illuminations Webstie..