More and more, our lives are run by data. Part of understanding data and the study of that data, statistics, is understanding randomness. Most of the basic concepts in inferential statistics are based on the size of the probability of an event happening randomly. One of the best ways to understand randomness is to experience randomness in action.
Simulating situations with dice, cards, and spinners builds the experience needed to understand the sometimes counterintuitive procedures of inferential statistics. The materials, your generous donations provide for, will help build a classroom kit for not only my class, but other statistics classes at my school. One student shuffling cards does not generate much data, but when thirty six students are shuffling cards (or rolling dice or spinning spinners), then the class becomes a giant, data-generating machine. The students see how statistics describes patterns from random chances. From these experiences, students move onto computer simulations and then to the formulas and procedures of inferential statistics.
About my class
More and more, our lives are run by data. Part of understanding data and the study of that data, statistics, is understanding randomness. Most of the basic concepts in inferential statistics are based on the size of the probability of an event happening randomly. One of the best ways to understand randomness is to experience randomness in action.
Simulating situations with dice, cards, and spinners builds the experience needed to understand the sometimes counterintuitive procedures of inferential statistics. The materials, your generous donations provide for, will help build a classroom kit for not only my class, but other statistics classes at my school. One student shuffling cards does not generate much data, but when thirty six students are shuffling cards (or rolling dice or spinning spinners), then the class becomes a giant, data-generating machine. The students see how statistics describes patterns from random chances. From these experiences, students move onto computer simulations and then to the formulas and procedures of inferential statistics.