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STATISTICS
A web-based unit
for Integrated
Algebra
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Welcome!
This website
is intended to serve as an entire web-based unit on Statistics for my
Integrated Algebra students. The pages included in this website are
organized by topic, with a quiz, lesson plan, additional resources, and
references added. The page is designed so that everything
students need for the unit can be found on the site. Appropriate
forms of multimedia were chosen for each topic that would aid in
student learning. Students will begin this unit by engaging in a mini-lecture on central tendency. As stated by Boethel and Dimock (1999), in "Constructing Knowledge with Technology: A Review of the Literature," technology can be used in a constructivist learning environment to, "Uncover students' prior knowledge, understanding, and beliefs" (p. 24). This is what occurs in the mini-lecture as students build on the prior knowledge of mean, median, and mode and extend it to understand when and why these measures of central tendency are used. This requires students to go beyond the application of central tendency in finding the mean, median, and mode of data sets. Instead, they will engage in evaluation to determine which measure of central tendency is most appropriate to use for a set of data and defend their choice. Once students are familiar with the measures of central tendency they will progress to histograms and cumulative histograms. A video tutorial will be used to teach students how to create a frequency table and histogram, while a voicethread will be used in explaining the differences between histograms and cumulative histograms. Once students are familiar with both of these graphs they will create a histogram and cumulative histogram displaying real data from their favorite baseball team. In this case technology is being used as a means to, "Tap into student interests and provide increased motivation for learning," which is consistent with constructivist teaching (Boethel & Dimock, 1999, p. 24). Next, students will be introduced to stem and leaf plots and box and whisker plots, both of which are likely to be new concepts for students. Stem and leaf plots will be presented with a PowerPoint, while a interactive image map will be used to introduce students to box and whisker plots. For both of these topics students will learn how to make the plot, as well as when to use each and why. Students will then collect data on a topic of their choosing (daily temperatures, classmates height, etc.), and will display this data using a stem and leaf plot or box and whisker plot. By allowing students to use real life data, students are able to, "Explore problems, generate and test hypotheses, and construct knowledge," in an authentic context (Boethel & Dimock, 1999, p. 21). The final lesson on scatter plots and correlation involves the use of an audio lecture to instruct students in creating a scatter plot and a digital story to explain the different types of correlation. As students partake in the lecture, they will follow along in creating a scatter plot, much as they would when taking notes in class. This lesson also seeks to extend students prior knowledge by relying on their familiarity with lines of best fit from science to introduce the topic and calling on their knowledge of linear equations to find the equations of trend lines. After students are comfortable with the different ways of working with and displaying data they will take a quiz created in Hot Potatoes to assess their understanding of measures of central tendency. This web-based unit utilizes numerous forms of multimedia as a means of tapping into multiple intelligences. Spatial and visual learners will find the graphics and videos used to teach the topics very helpful. The mini-lectures that are largely text-based will be appreciated by verbal and linguistic learners, while auditory learners will be drawn to the audio blog and digital story. In creating this tutorial website the content was designed to be ADA compliant. Alt text is used with all images and text equivalents of audio files are provided. The goal in doing this is to make the website accessible to all learners. While the web pages of this tutorial are intended to be viewed in order, moving down the table of contents on the left, please feel free to view the pages in any order you like. I hope that you find the content engaging and the website user-friendly. Thanks for visiting, and enjoy! |