Misleading Statistics

Engage
To engage students at the beginning of a lesson, insert video,
image, quote, or another inspirational hook in this box.
The Goal: Reveal Pre-existing ideas, Beliefs, Preconceptions.
Pose questions that students will begin to answer in “Explore”

Using what you already know about statistics please reflect

on this video. What are some other areas of study that you
think use statistics? Is there any question you would want to
try and answer with statistics? What do you think about
Mark Twain’s quote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies,
damned lies, and statistics.”?

Please share your response with your table group and post
your table’s combined thoughts on the google classroom
stream.

Explore
Curate a collection of resources (articles, videos, infographics,
text excerpts, etc.) for students to explore the topic.
The Goal: Students may be gathering data, sharing ideas,
looking for patterns, making conjectures, and developing
further questions and problem solving considerations with the
use of the information/activity provided

Please use one of the following sites to find 3 sets of statistics

that interest you:
http://www.statista.com/
http://infomory.com/category/numbers/
https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/
These sets should not be connected to one another, such as
having 3 sets of sports data. Please try and differentiate them.
Once you have these sets of data please reply to the post you
made on google classroom with the links to each data set.

Explain
Use this section to allow students to explain their thinking and
move towards demonstrating mastery of the lesson’s objective.
The Goal: Provide opportunity for students to compare ideas,
construct explanations, justify in terms of observations and/or
data collected in a collaborative large group environment.
Please watch this video about misleading stats and graphs.
When you were researching for your 3 data sets, did you find
any misleading graphs? I want you to review your table group’s
© HyperDocs
data that each member collected and decide it is being honest
or not. Explain your thinking on each set of data. Once done,
reply to the google classroom stream with how many sets were
dishonest out of the amount collected.

Apply/Elaborate
Use this section for students to apply information from the
previous sections to new circumstances or elaborate on a
particular aspect at a deeper level usually coming in the form
of “What if” questions.
The Goal: Allowing students the opportunity to discuss how
their thinking has changed or been solidified.
I want you to create your own graphs using the data set I will
provide. Use whatever part of the data you want. Make a
dishonest graph and an honest graph. What did you do to
make the graph dishonest, and how did you make it honest.
After all, graphs have been made you are going to share them
with your table group and see how the graphs compare. Did
you all use the same idea to make the graph dishonest, or is
there variety in your graphs?

500 people were involved in a blind taste test. There were 134
girls and 366 boys tested. Percentages of people who picked
the soda they liked best in a blind taste test:

Yummy Soda 23% - 6% female 17% male

Excellent Soda 25% - 20% female 5%male
Extreme Soda 25% - 15% female 10% male
Radical Soda 27% - 8% female 19% male

Reflect/Evaluate
Include an opportunity for face-to-face or digital reflection to
guide students along their learning progression, evaluating
progress and setting new goals for continued exploration.
The Goal: Refine initial answer to the “driving question” and
reflect on ideas, goals and beliefs concerning their progress.
Look back and reflect on your answers to What do you think
about Mark Twain’s quote, “There are three kinds of lies:
lies, damned lies, and statistics.”? Has your answer changed
through this lesson? Have you learned to be more cautious
when dealing with statistics?

Please write a 1 paragraph minimum reflection on what you

have learned about statistics and how your views may or
may not have changed throughout this lesson. Do you
agree to disagree with Mark Twain’s quote now that you
have more experience with statistics? Turn in this reflection
to the google classroom assignment titled Reflection Week

© HyperDocs
3.

© HyperDocs