Concrete

Activity: Provide students with three different sets of objects like clothes/fabric, shoes, and accessories. Ask them to organize the objects into groups or categories. For example, they can group by colours or by the material used. They then need to record the number of each and explain why they put certain items in respective categories. In this discussion, introduce the term data set.

Objective: The goal is to introduce the concept of data collection and organization in a tangible way. Students will learn how to gather data, represent it visually with their objects, and understand the idea of a dataset.

Representational

Activity: In this stage, transition to a more representational approach. Provide students with graph paper and have them create data tables for the sets in the concrete section. Then have them brainstorm additional categories they can add to make their set larger.  For example, they can sort shoes and accessories (earrings) by pairs or group clothes, shoes (boots), and accessories (gloves) by season and ask them to transfer the data they collected in the concrete stage into these tables or graphs. Finally, they need to produce a graph on chart paper that reflects the data in their tables. Students will then do a gallery walk to critique their classmate’s work. 

Objective: This step helps students transition from concrete objects to more symbolic representations of data. They learn how to create and interpret tables and graphs, which are fundamental in data analysis.

Abstract

Activity: Instruct students to take their data tables from the representation stage and input the numbers into Excel. Then instruct them to use scratch to code a digital version of the graph that they hand drew previously. Ask them to make comparisons, interpret the data, identify trends, and draw conclusions about the data as well as digital versus by-hand methods. If time permits/for students that need a challenge, introduce students to more complex real-world data (not as complex as the picture above), like average temperatures in a specific location over a month, and have them analyze it using scratch. 

Objective: At this stage, students are working with abstract data and are asked to apply their knowledge and skills to analyze and draw meaningful conclusions. They will learn concepts like mean, median, mode, and range, as well as how to interpret data in a real-world context.