FRIT 7234 – Mini-Lessons – Angela Clark

These three lessons are from my Advanced Mathematical Decision Making (AMDM) class.
This is a 12th grade math class that I have been teaching for four years. It has a lot of real-world
activities for the students, which is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching this class.

1st Lesson – Ethical Use of Information

ISTE Standards for Students

2c - Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using
and sharing intellectual property.

Curation
http://list.ly/l/1Ws5

Opening the Lesson:

The following PowerPoint on LeBron James is shown asking the question “Is this legal or not?”

for each slide. Three of the slides, stats, and a quote have been taken from the internet and not

given proper credit. The brief biography of LeBron on the second slide is okay.

If I publish this PowerPoint on the internet, could it cost me thousands of dollars?

If it is accessible from the internet, do I have a right to use it?

1st Slide

LeBron James

History in the Making

2nd Slide
3rd Slide

4th Slide
After reviewing and discussing what is right or wrong with the slides and how we can correct
them, we will look at Types of Plagiarism. We will look at the pamphlet, Examples of
Plagiarism, to help students see examples. We will use the chart in this article, Follow this
Chart to Know If You Can Use an Image from the Internet, to help decide when to cite images. I
will bring up different images and go through the chart with the students. Students will view the
video, A Fair(y) Use Tale. This is a fun video that explains copyright and public domain. All
these websites are in the curated resource.

Next, I will tell the class that they will be working on a project that will require the use of
technology and Web 2.0 tools. The main purpose of this lesson is for students to give credit
when using quotes, statistics or images. I am taking it further to talk about ethical behavior
while using the computer. Students are on the internet and social media all the time. I cannot
assume that the students know computer ethics. We will look at the article, Tools for Teaching
Cyber Ethics from the curation resources. It includes the 10 Commandments of Cyber Ethics.
We will discuss each of the commandments. Next students will use their Google Chrome books
to take a quiz over what they have learned: Computer Ethics Quiz. After we go through, I will
answer any questions students may have. All these articles that we are using are brought up on
my SMART Board. These two websites are in the curated resource as well.

Students will use their blog that has been set up to summarize what they have learned about
ethical use of information. They need to know the seriousness that is involved in using the
internet for social and educational reasons. Guiding questions: Were you aware of ethical
behavior on the internet? Did you realize the importance? Will this make a difference the next
time you use social media or write a paper? Explain.

Digital Information Fluency – By looking through the slides, students are trying to identify
what should be copyrighted and how to correct the slides. Taking the assessment at the end of
the lesson will apply what they have learned.

Principles of Inquiry-Based Learning – Students are learning about ethical citizenship and
how to apply it when using the computer. Deep understanding of knowing that just because it is
on the internet does not mean it belongs to you and others. There is a use of technology of
students using the Chromebooks to assess their knowledge.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy – Remembering (Online quiz) and understanding (summarizing on

their blog) are used in this lesson.
2nd Lesson

Georgia Standards of Excellence – Advanced Mathematical Decision Making:

Students will explore representations of data and models of data as tools in the decision
making.

MAMDMD2. Students will build the skills and vocabulary necessary to analyze and critique
reported statistical information, summaries, and graphical displays.

MAMDMD3. Students will apply statistical methods to design, conduct, and analyze statistical
studies.

ISTE Standards:
1 Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating
competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

3 Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge,
produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

7 Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by
collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Curation:
http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=2225425
The first two tabs in the curated resource are more information on descriptive statistics. The
third and fourth tabs are online calculators to find the descriptive statistics. The last three tabs
are web tools to create box and whiskers plot.

If we look at our class grades, what statistics might we look for?

What about the teacher salaries at this school?

I will be listening for the minimum, maximum, average…

Will the grades in this class represent the grades in my other AMDM class? Why?

This is when I will bring up descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the
basic features of the data in a study. It cannot make any conclusion outside of the given data.
Inferential statistics is about drawing conclusions about a population from a sample. We will
look at inferential later. Our focus today will be on descriptive statistics. This will include
central tendency (mean, median, and mode), number of data values, standard deviation and the
five number summary. The five number summary includes minimum, 1st quartile, median, 3rd
quartile and maximum. Students will know how to find these values from a previous lesson. We
are putting these together and evaluating the data. Then, the students will make a box and
whiskers plot.

With a partner, students can choose from the following problems below or come up with one of
their own. The curated resources provide a couple of websites to find the statistics (https://
www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/statistics/descriptivestatistics.php, http://www.xuru.org/
st/ds.asp). Students can choose from the other curated resources to make a box and whiskers plot
(https://www.meta-chart.com/box-and-whisker , http://www.imathas.com/stattools/boxplot.html ,
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/BoxPlot/ ) . Students will make a copy of the box
plot with correct labels and add to Google slides for a crowd sourcing activity. One or two slides
are required. Students need to remember to cite resources and decorate how they want. Students
need to be careful not interfere with other students’ slides. The students will use a graphing
calculator to find the random numbers. The slides will include the box and whiskers plot,
descriptive statistics, three or more sentences that interpret the data.

1. For information about state sales taxes, go to the Federation of Tax Administrators’
website at http://dor.wa.gov/docs/reports/2015/Compare15/Table15.pdf. The sales tax for
each state and the District of Columbia is listed. You will compute statistics for state
sales taxes, without actually using 51 pieces of data in your calculation. Use your
calculator or a random number table to select 15 of the 51 locations. The random number
is the state in alphabetical order (Example: 5 – California, 16 – Kansas). Write down the
name of each location and its sales tax. Calculate the descriptive statistics for the data set
and interpret all statistics.

2. To view the tournament records for men’s college basketball teams, go to

http://webpages.charter.net/dbwoerner/coaches/schl117.htm. Because there are hundreds
of schools listed, you will take a sample to compute the average winning percentage. Use
your calculator or a random number table to select 25 teams. Write down the name of
each school and compute the winning percentage (wins/ total games played). Use the
current year. Calculate the descriptive statistics for the data set and interpret all statistics.

3. To view gasoline sales taxes by state, go to the American Petroleum Institute website at
http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas/consumer-information/motor-fuel-taxes/gasoline-
tax. You will compute statistics for gasoline sales taxes by state. Use your calculator or a
random number table to select 15 of the 51 amounts. The random number is the state in
alphabetical order (Example: 5 – California, 16 – Kansas). Write down the name of each
state and its sales tax on a gallon of gas. Calculate the descriptive statistics for the data set
and interpret all statistics.

After the crowdscource activity is completed, I will arrange slides according to the above
activities. We will compare and contrast the findings. We will discuss the slides that
were different from the activities above. Will there be a big difference in the results
because of the random numbers?
 Rubric for Descriptive Statistic Activity
Element Unacceptable – 1 Acceptable – 2 Target – 3
Descriptive None of the Descriptive Descriptive
Statistics descriptive statistics statistics include Statistics include
are included. some of the five the five number
number summary, summary, standard
standard deviation, deviation, number
number of data and of data, and central
central tendency. tendency.
Box and Whiskers The box and The box and The box and
Plot whiskers plot has no whiskers plot is whiskers plot is
labels, no citation missing one or two labeled correctly,
and not legible. of labeling, legible and cited
citations, and resources.
legibility.
Description No sentences are One to two Three sentences or
used to describe sentences are used more describing the
activity. to describe the data data and box plot
and box plot. and showing a
deeper
understanding of the
activity.
Crowdsource The slides have no The slides show The slides show
activity creativity and there some creativity with creativity with
are many spelling occasional spelling spelling or
and grammatical or grammatical grammatical errors.
errors. errors.

Digital Information Fluency – Students are finding real-world data on the internet. Students
can use web tools to evaluate the data. Then, they will use other web tools to graph the data.
There will be multiple representations of the data. The crowdsourcing activity involves Google
Slides. As a class, we will discuss the similarities and differences of the results. There three
different web tools used.

Principles of Inquiry-Based Learning – Students are using real world data. The web tools that
they use will show descriptive statistics. The crowdsourcing activity is the assessment of
descriptive statistics. Writing the sentences that interpret the data will help me to check their
understanding.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy – Students are applying the data in web tools that will create a
graph. We will analyze the data on Google Slides that the students created.
3rd Mini-Lesson

Georgia Standards of Excellence – Advanced Mathematical Decision Making

Students will explore representations of data and models of data as tools in the decision
making.

MAMDM.D.3 Students will apply statistical methods to design, conduct, and analyze statistical
studies.

ISTE Standards:
3 Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge,
produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

4 Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems
by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.

6 Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes
using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

Curation Resources: http://www.bagtheweb.com/b/lHvwYx

Lesson:

1. What was the color of the teacher’s shirt in the last class you were in?
2. What color shirt was I (or your best friend) wearing yesterday?
3. What names did the principal call out in announcements this morning?

After discussing these answers, we will talk about being observant. In the Google Chromebooks,
students will play the game, Spot the Difference 2. This is in the curation resources. I will give
the students 6 – 7 minutes to play to see how well they can find the differences.

Today we are talking about observational and experimental studies.

We will write down definitions of both and discuss the differences.

Students will read information about observational and experimental studies from the curated
resources. The three websites give examples of observational and experimental studies, how to
conduct an observational study and different types of observational studies
(https://faculty.elgin.edu/dkernler/statistics/ch01/1-2.html,
https://learnzillion.com/resources/9925, http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-
projects/project_ideas/Soc_observation.shtml, http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-
observation.html ) . After reading through these websites, there is an online quiz
(https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/study-design-a1/observational-studies-
experiments/a/observational-studies-and-experiments ) for them to take for self-assessment.

With a partner, students will conduct their own observational study. Students will download the
Poll Everywhere app to collect data. Students will be able to choose their own question. They
can use one from the examples in the curated resources or come up with one of their own.
Examples of questions or observations: How many hours a day do you spend on homework?
What is your favorite restaurant? When walking in a store or leaving a store, how many look at
their phone? How many times do you look at your phone during class?

Students are to use ethical behavior if asking questions or observing from a distance.

Students will have two days to collect data. Once data is collected, students will use the website
Create a Graph. Students will be able to choose which ever graph they want. If students prefer
another graphing website, that will be fine. The graphs can be saved and emailed to me or
printed out. Then, each student will write a reflection paper on the experience of the observation
survey. Questions to consider: How did the Poll Everywhere app and Create a Graph work?
Explain your process on how you performed the study (asking a question or observing at a
distance). Did the data match with preconceived thoughts? Did you and partner provide equal
time in this project? Why did you choose a certain graph? How has this helped in learning about
observational studies? How can it help you in the future?

Digital Information Fluency – Students will decide on a question and find participants to
answer using the Poll Everywhere app. After evaluating the data, apply it in an online graph.

Principles of Inquiry-Based Learning – Students are using real-world questions by conducting

an observational study. There is use of technology that can be used with the cell phone, tablet
and/or computer. The reflection paper and graph should show what the students have learned.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy – Students will show understanding of observational study from
the reflection paper. The will analyze their data from the graph they created. There is
collaborating with their partner.

These three lessons extend beyond the classroom. The technology that the students learn can be
used in other classes as well as working in the community. I believe these three lessons will help
the students to be more attentive to their surroundings. Reading a graph will be very important
after their education and into the work force.