Allison Cuttler

REthinking REsources - Project Abstract

In this statistics project, students will create a class survey based on an environmental topic of their choice. After designing and administering the survey, students will collect, analyze, and display data using Microsoft Excel. In addition to contributing to the refinement of the class survey and the analysis of the data, every student will create a statistical portfolio to present their conclusions about environmental consciousness to the community at HTHCV's spring exhibition.

What did you teach and how did you teach it?

Students covered various statistics-related content standards throughout this project, including:

• • Types of "averages" (mean, median, mode)

  • Standard deviation and variance

  • Visual representation of data

  • Correlation and causation

  • Margin of error

In addition, the survey creation portion of the project taught the students about survey design, biased questions, and response bias.

What concepts and skills did the students gain in this class through this project?

The first skill students learned was survey design. While this was the initial phase of the project, students had a chance to reflect on the process of creating a survey again and again as they analyzed their data and consequently saw some of the problems with the way their questions had been asked.

In addition to the statistics content outlined above, students became proficient at using Microsoft Excel and Google Spreadsheets for data analysis and for creating visuals such as charts and graphs. They thought critically about the best ways to display their data, and they made conclusions about the sample population using their data as evidence. Finally, they practiced their technical writing skills in creating a final statistical portfolio.

How is the curriculum for this project academically rich and grade-level challenging?

Students had the option of taking on various roles throughout the project. Students who were especially interested in the design of the survey became "survey gurus," while other students took on leadership roles when it came to analyzing the data or using Microsoft Excel. Although some of the statistical concepts covered were more elementary, students delved deeper into statistics than ever before. For example, they had to compute the correlation between two variables of the choice and discuss the causation based on their own prior knowledge and experience. Students became proficient in concepts that are often not discussed until a more advanced statistics course, such as margin of error. In addition, the latter part of the project focused on the challenging task of presenting their data, drawing conclusions, and justifying those conclusions based on the data they had collected.

To what extent was there integration across disciplines in your class through this project?

At the time they were doing the REthinking REsources project, students were studying environmental issues in our community in their Environmental Science class. In addition, the strong writing and Microsoft Excel components of the projects allowed students to engage in math from different perspectives.

Which Habits of Heart and Mind (HoHM) and Design Principles were utilized in this project?

Habits of Heart and Mind:

• • Refinement: Students refined their surveys extensively and became even more aware of the need for refinement as the results came in!

  • Perspective: Through the process of administering the survey and talking with different community members, students were forced to see other perspectives on environmental awareness.

  • Cooperation: Survey design, creation, and analysis were full-class collaborative efforts. Students depended on each other to hand out their share of surveys and to organize different data sets.

  • Evidence: Students drew conclusions using the data as evidence; unfounded claims were challenged and often dismissed.

  • Perseverance: Demonstrated through the entire process, but especially in analyzing data using Microsoft Excel. For many students this was the first time they had used Excel to deal with large quantities of data, and learning all of the techniques and shortcuts certainly required perseverance!

Design Principles:

• • Adult-world connection: Students connected with the adult world by surveying a variety of people and presenting their analysis to the outside community at Festival del Sol.

How did you incorporate refinement through this project?

Refinement was incorporated into every stage of the project. Students refined the survey that they had created in small groups and as a whole class. During the data analysis phase, students were constantly figuring out shortcuts on Microsoft Excel and helping each other to effectively use the tools available, thus refining their process along the way. Finally, students completed several drafts of their statistical portfolio, getting feedback both from myself and from each other. They were encouraged to ask questions such as: Why is the data presented like that? Is that the most effective way to visualize the data? Does the data support the conclusions? Is the technical writing clear and accurate?