At the end of this lesson, students will:
This warm up game can begin once every students has entered the classroom and gotten into their seats. All students will stand up and be given each a coin. The students will be told that they're going to be playing a game called "Tails Never Fails". In this game, every students will toss their coin, if they get tails they stay in the game, anyone who doesn't draw a tails will sit out for the rest of the game. The teacher will keep track of how many times students have tossed their coin until there is a winner.
In this coin toss game, students will be refreshed on the idea that this is an independent event. That the probability for each coin remained the same and was not affected by the previous toss. Students will review this game and its concepts in the later activities
To follow up this game and to now describe a dependent event, the class will be playing a game called "3". The teacher will first use a cup of popsicle sticks, with each students name on a stick. The teacher will choose one stick and that particular student gets to throw a die and try to roll a "3". After the student has rolled it, the teacher will pick the next stick leaving the previous stick behind and the next student chosen gets to have a try. Each time a student is chosen, the teacher will ask the class what is the probability of the next student to be chosen and when they have come up with an answer, follow up with why? Once this has gone through several students in the class, the class will be asked how does this differ from the coin game they had just played. This activity is used to refresh students on the concept of dependent events and how it differs from independent events
Activities sourced from: https://www.commonsense.org/education/lesson-plans/independent-and-dependent-events-probability
As a class, the teacher reviews the game along with the students and have students determine that in an independent event the probability is P(A and B) = P(A) x P(B), for example with the coin game where the probability for a student to get tails twice is 1/2 x 1/2.
The students will then determine that with the game "3" that in a dependent event the probability would be P(A and B) = P(A) x P(B after A). For example, for a class of 20 students, the probability of the first student chosen along with the second student is 1/20 x 1/19.
Each student will then have access to a computer and have a go at a speed test to consolidate their findings. Students can have a competition among themselves to see who can get the most correct answers in the shortest amount of time
5 minutes before the lesson ends, each student will be given a post it note and write down what they now know of independent and dependent events. They will then hand it to the teacher before they leave class.
Further support on this syllabus outcome can be accessed in this video: https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/teaching-probability-odds