Teaching statistical data vocabulary in context is the best way for them to really learn those terms. Today we changed the rules for Kakooma Challenge just enough to incorporate "mean" and "outlier". I teach 3 sections of honors math each day - 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Today, we held our weekly Kakooma challenge and added a twist. We are now keeping score of the class mean of each grade level with the idea of adding a bit of teamwork and competition.
Instead of having the table group with the lowest score get another turn, I decided a great way to teach "outlier" is for the class to decide if there is an outlier in the time/score --- and if there is, that group will get another turn. We discussed the definition of outlier and why it is important. So after our outlier in each grade level took another turn (yes, thankfully, there was an outlier in grade), they determined the class average time and recorded on a giant scoreboard that we will keep from week to week.
They worried that one of the classes is bigger than the other 2 and how that would affect their average - what a great discussion. They know how to find the class average, rounded to the tenths place, and how to compare that number to the others. Who was fastest and by how much!
I think these students will remember mean and outlier as we hold our Kakooma Challenge each Friday. They might even remember those terms on the state test!
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