Super Heroes and Evil Villains

Pie graphs and bar graphs:  Wow, what a boring topic.  If your teaching a high school stats class the topic of pie graphs and bar graphs (categorical data) can be pretty boring and dull.  So how can you liven things up a bit.  Well, one way to make boring topics more interesting for your students is to give them ownership of the topic in some way.

I decided to have all my students create their own Super Hero or Super Villain.  The results were quite entertaining.  I learned all about Heroes like The Jet, whose only weakness is being ticklish, and The Sock Monkey who is always battling The Killer Lamp.  One of my favorites was Forest Man, who roams the Earth looking for The Monster Truck who killed his mother.

I have to admit that part
of my inspiration for this
project was Conan O'Brien
as, The Flaming C.

Let's not forget the villains.  I was introduced to villains like "The Twixter", who has the ability to "candify" things and is always on the run from "The Dentist".  Then there was Turtleman, the mortal enemy of Mrs. Magnificent.  Turtleman has the ability to make everyone late and Mrs. Magnificent hates it when people are late.

My students got really creative with their hero/villain and their super powers.(By the way, the most popular super powers were flight, invisibility, and the power to steal other powers.)  It made a pretty boring topic, fun.

As teachers, we face the challenge of "entertaining" our students and battling that with the Internet, apps, movies, and TV.  Our greatest asset in the battle for our students' attention, is our students themselves.  I was pleased with this activity and the ownership that my students took with their creations.

The only part of the project that was unexpected was how little my students knew about using Excel.  I planned one 72 minute class period for students to create their displays, but it turned into two full class periods.

You can get instructions for the project here.  It you try it, please let me know your thoughts about the activity/project.

The Ultimate Survivor

To introduce the study of statistics to my students I gave them this activity on surviving in the wilderness after a plane crash.

A statistical study consists of the following:

1.  The problem or question that needs to be answered.
2.  Collecting your data
3.  Organizing your data - Stats, Graphs, Tables
4.  Analyzing your data - Conclusions

Here's the problem that was presented to my students:

You and your companions have just survived a crash of a small plane. Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash. It is mid-January and you are in Northern Canada. The daily temperature is 25 below zero, and the night time temperature is 40 below zero. There is snow on the ground and the countryside is wooded with several creeks crossing the area. The nearest town is 20 miles away. You are dressed in normal winter school clothes. Your group of survivors managed to salvage the items below.

A ball of steel wool

A Small Ax

A loaded 45-caliber pistol

A can of Crisco

Newspapers (1 for each person)

Cigarette Lighter without Fluid

A second set of clothing for each person

20 x 20 Heavy Duty Canvas

A section of map made of plastic

A compass

Your task is to list the items in order of importance for your survival. Be sure to list uses for each. When you get to the group rankings, you MUST come to an agreement as a group. 

The students had to rank the 10 items on their own, then work together to come to a group consensus on the rankings of the items, and finally compare their rankings to that of an "Expert".  The "Expert" was a former Army Ranger, trained in survival techniques.

You can find the entire activity and instructions here.

After completing this activity with my students, I found that they really liked the competitive part of it.  They got excited about being one of the best survivors.  They also got a kick out of who probably would not have survived.  And of course, some groups had wild imaginations and talked about eating each other to survive.

I would recommend this activity to Stats teachers as a way to introduce the process of statistics to their class.  Let me know if you try this or have tried something similar.  I'd love to get some feedback and discuss it with you.

New School Year = New Ideas = New Blog

With the first post in this blog, I want you to know that my plan is to post about my teaching experience.  Last school year I tackled the idea of "Flipping" my classroom.  Basically, I stopped lecturing during class time and put all my lectures online.

I turned all of my lectures into Prezi presentations that included pictures and videos for my stats classes.  You can find my Prezi page here.

I loved the "flip".  It allowed me to have more 1-on-1 interaction with my students and I saw more peer tutoring than ever before.  But most importantly, I discovered that I had more class time for discovery learning and hands-on applications.  About half way through last school year I started implement the "Explore-Flip-Apply" learning cycle described by Ramsay Mussalam.  Ramsay's cycles of learning allow students to explore topics and discover ideas on their own first.  Then they get more formal instruction at home in the form of "flipped lectures" or videos.  And then they come back the next day to apply what they have learned.

These Cycles of Learning have taken my teaching in a new, exciting direction.  I plan to share my cycles in this blog as the year goes on.

Another big change to my teaching this year is a switch to Standards Based Grading.  I've done a lot of research on this and hope that it will help to monitor my students' mastery in a better way.

So for those that stumble upon this blog, I hope that it can help you as a teacher and I would love to get feedback from you.