U4 Day 18-20: Lesson Resources
Activity and notes for the box plots, histograms. Gotten from math teachers at my school.
Unit 5 Graphic Displays Info.docx (255.1 KB) Unit 5 Sec 1 Notes (1).docx (141.9 KB) Unit 5 Section 1 Graphic Displays Worksheet DB (1).docx (255.9 KB)
Here is my unit 5 challenge one-pager! It has my extension and resources on it!
Unit 5 Challenge - days 18-20.docx (26.6 KB)
For Day 18-20 lessons I taught my students to code in R using R’s IDE, RStudio. I had them upload a csv file of data from a 1978 study of lung capacity and smoking in children ages 3 to 19. Students used box plots split by smoking status to come up with statistical questions regarding lung capacity.
I borrowed from my days as a math teacher to add an extension / reteaching of Box plots.
What can make the creation of box plots easy is to make sure you:
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Order the dataset from least to greatest. Always do this first. This will make calculating the median and interquartile ranges much faster as well as identifying the mode (should you need it).
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I then have the students cut the data in half. Remind them that if the dataset has an odd number of elements, then one of the elements will be the actual median. If the dataset has an even number of elements, the median will be the mean (average) of the two elements that are nearest the middle (with an equal number of elements on each side).
At this point, you could draw a loose connection with a binary sort, seeing as how the dataset is being cut into equal halves.
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Median of the upper half and median of the lower half are determined.
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Plot all those numbers on a numberline as well as the lowest and highest values and voila! A box plot.
Students (IMO) are not given enough explanations on how to create these and in my state, it is usually glossed over.
I like to remind students that it is a good practice to order a dataset from least to greatest prior to attempting any calculations regarding it.
Attached, you will also find a foldable I created to visually represent the interquartile range (The box).BoxWhiskerPlot.docx (6.1 KB)
The attachment was created in LibreOffice. I hope it renders correctly.
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Thanks for sharing some extra tips on teaching Box plots. I agree that it is a good idea to help students make those connections of ordering the data, cutting data sets and how to plot the numbers.
Do you have the students keep a journal for their foldables or is it a fun activity to help students remember concepts?
It is more of a “Fun” activity. Truth be told, I am no good at keeping journals and have trouble managing students to keep journals. If it is something important, they will write it down. Otherwise, most questions in class turn to discussions.