MDM4U Introduction to Statistics; Measures of Central Tendency 2016-05-02

I tried to have several discussions with you today about statistics, how we use them to make sense of the world, and how they can be misreported in the media and elsewhere. I didn’t get much participation from you, which was disappointing.

I played an audio clip of a neurologist speaking with friends about a badly-reported science news item. I didn’t get much participation from you, which was disappointing.

So I reviewed the three measures of central tendency that you’re familiar with: mean, median, and mode. I wanted to talk about when each one is useful, and when it’s not. To do this I tried using a visual on the projector. I didn’t get much participation from you, which was disappointing.

I assigned page 133 #1-4 for homework. A bunch of you got busy right away, typing values into your calculator to answer the questions. Honestly, this disappointed me too, in the context of the rest of the period.

You’re not here to “do school”. You’re here to develop skills and learn to think critically. Calculating medians is not a way to develop your brain. Completing tasks is not the point.

I need you to be able to analyze, interpret, draw conclusions, and make decisions based on data. Any spreadsheet can calculate medians, but Excel can’t tell you whether three minutes of exercise is enough each week or whether e-cigarettes are a good thing.

I want what’s best for each of you, and that means actual learning, not just task completion. If there’s something you need in this class to make that happen and I’m not providing it, I need you to tell me. Today didn’t work, and I don’t want a repeat performance tomorrow. None of us does, I hope. Help me out.

MDM4U Discrete Probability Distributions Review Solutions 2016-04-27

Here they are! Note that 5(c) and 6(b) were late additions, so they’re at the end of the document.

Discrete Probability Distributions Solutions

MDM4U Reviewing discrete probability distributions 2016-04-25

About half of the class was absent on Thursday, so I’m hoping you had your textbooks and were able to complete the assigned work. Either way, I’m expecting that you have completed it.

I’ll be absent again today as I’m working with Mrs. House on a special math project in her classroom. You’ll be working on this:

Discrete Probability Distributions – Review

This is pretty much what your test will look like when we get to it. You’ll be having a test on Thursday.

MDM4U Practising with the hypergeometric distribution 2016-04-21

I’m not going to be in class this afternoon. I’ve left the following practice questions for you based on yesterday’s learning:

Page 404 #1-4, 8, 10-12

If you finish those, take time to complete your pink skills summary booklet. I have a couple of extras on my desk if you don’t have yours with you.

On Monday we’ll start to complete a longer review of the entire unit, including all three distributions. We’ll be spending time creating simulations next week as well, so make sure you have watched the video I posted a couple of days ago (it’s not optional, folks).

Enjoy the long weekend (tomorrow is a PD Day)! Be safe, I’ll miss you all, and I’ll see you next week!

MDM4U Discrete Probability Distributions Skills Tracking 2016-04-20

Yup, we’re wrapping up another section of the course. Here’s another booklet to help you organize your thinking about each distribution and practise solving problems. It’s a booklet on legal paper, so you print it double-sided flipping on the short edge.

Skills Tracking – Discrete Probability Distributions – booklet

MDM4U Hypergeometric Probability Distribution 2016-04-20

We learned about the hypergeometric probability distribution today. Here’s a summary of the note we took in class: Hypergeometric Distribution – note

Want some examples? Hypergeometric Probability Distribution Examples

No homework tonight. :)

Don’t forget: I’ll be here until 6:00pm if your parents would like to meet me and talk about your progress in the course.

MDM4U Creating dice game simulations

We made several dice simulations today that were more complex than yesterday’s simulation. Here’s the handout I gave you:

Creating a dice game simulation

Note that these games are simple enough that we can calculate probabilities directly, without having to run a simulation. When you have more skills we’ll create simulations for games that are difficult to calculate probabilities for, so the simulations will be more practical.

Parent-Teacher night tomorrow – want an appointment? 2016-04-19

I’ll be staying after school until about 6pm tomorrow (Wednesday, April 20th) to meet with parents (and students) who want to talk about their child’s progress in my class.

I’m a little concerned about the possibility that people will all arrive at the same time, and I don’t want to keep people waiting if I don’t have to.

To try to help, I’d like to book some appointments in advance. If you want to try to book a specific time with me I’ve set up a quick form you can fill out. I can’t promise the time you request since others are making requests too, but I’ll do my best to accommodate your needs. If you can’t make it, you can let me know that on the form as well.

Booking a time with Mr. Grasley

MDM4U More Binomial Distribution; beginning simulations 2016-04-18

We practised using binomial distributions using some textbook questions today (Page 386 #7, 8ab).

For homework you have Page 386 #10, and Page 406 #7-10.

We then spent about 30 minutes learning the basics of creating a dice simulation using a spreadsheet. Most people used Google Sheets. To generate a random die roll we used the formula

=randbetween(1,6)

We learned to sum cell values and fill formulas (by dragging the cursor or highlighting and pressing Ctrl+D).

Tomorrow we’ll continue with this work and develop some more complex simulations.

(Edit: Apparently I didn’t click the “Publish” button on this post, so it’s appearing just before noon on the 19th instead of 6pm on the 18th. Sorry folks!)

Parent-Teacher interviews on Wednesday

Hey everyone,

I was unable to attend the official Parent-Teacher Interview Night so I’ll be holding my own on Wednesday, April 20th from 3:30pm to 6:00pm. I’ll be in Room 260, our regular classrooom. Parents can stop by and meet me, talk about your progress, ask questions, etc. I really like it when students come with their parents, so come along too!