Section 4.6
Class Data Collection
Learning Goals
Students begin submitting data that will be used in ARC Challenge #4.
Objectives and General Description
ARC Challenge #4 involves learning to collect, clean, filter and analyze data. In order to do this, there needs to be a class set of data for the students to use. This activity will be a basic form that students fill out once a day. The answers will be collected in a spreadsheet that will be used for the data analysis later in the unit.
Activities
Activity 4.6.1 (1 minute at the beginning of each class for a week)
We need to collect data to use for the first part of ARC Challenge #4 which will be introduced later in the unit. At the beginning of class each day, have your students complete an online form that asks basic questions, like "How much sleep did you get last night? How much time did you spend doing homework last night? What time did you go to sleep? etc.). You can customize the questions. Here is a sample form. If you want to use this form, make sure you make a copy of it.
Make sure you select an online form format that will place the responses in a spreadsheet, like Google Forms. Give the students the same form each day. You want to collect a LOT of data so it all needs to feed into the same spreadsheet. Tell the students that they will be using this information for an activity later in the unit. I would suggest having them complete this form for at least a week.
The students will be taking this spreadsheet of information and will be going through a process of cleaning and filtering the data. Then they will analyze the data to answer questions or predict trends. When you are designing your form, make sure you include a variety of responses formats. Do not have them all multiple choice. I would suggest having several questions in which the students have to manually enter a numerical value. Part of the cleaning process is going to be having to convert written values ("four") to the numerical value 4. This will help students understand the importance of data collection design. More on that later. Here is a sample spreadsheet of responses.