Data Displays

April 26th, 2019

When you hear the words data displays what exactly do you think of?  Did you know that displaying data could actually be fun and your students could learn while doing something fun and productive?
I am a very visual learner and by creating graphs, I can display data and learn from it all at the same time.  I am able to use my creativity which makes it fun for me because I am creating a masterpiece to showcase my work, well at least I like to think so!

This day in class we made data displays to show how you could display Categorical and Numeric Data in a nice visual way and have fun doing it. We learned about Continuous data and Discreet data and what graphs are good for using certain data sets.  The data displays we made in class had us listing the advantages and disadvantages to each graph so there is a lot of information in these 2 foldables that we can use in the future.  This is my second time making these so I knew what to expect and tried to do better than I had previously.  

Categorical Data Display

Numerical Data Display

Each fold out shows us an example of the graph and the Advantages and Disadvantages that come along with using each graph to display said data. Gives you the pro's and con's to think about for when you have that need to display data.  We use and see things like this is every day life and we can easily use this as a teaching tool with future students.

Important parts of a graph that are essential to having a good graph: #1 A title that describes the experiment.  #2 Lables - each axis should be labeled with the quantity being measure and the units of measurement. Horizontal x-axis the independant variable and Vertical y-axis the dependant variable, both must be labeled. #3 Scale of graph. #4 Symbols - if using symbols you must include their representation.  #5 Legend.

Types of Graphs

Pictographs - A pictograph is a way of showing data using pictures(symbols).  Each picture stands for a certain number of things, like above each basketball stands for 10 games played.  So Terri played 20 games because she has 2 basketballs, Sue played 10 games because she only has 1 basketball and Maddie only played 10 games as well.

Bar Graphs - Graph using rectangular bars to show how large each value is, bars can be vertical or horizontal.  The bar graph above shows how many kids have dogs, fish, cats, lizards, and spiders for pets.

Circle Graphs - Also known as pie charts shows whole and parts of the whole, values are represented and labeled.  The pie chart aboves shows favorite colors in class, 50% of class likes blue, 25% like pink, 12.5% like salmon and 12.5% like purple.

Stem & Leaf - This is a special table where each data value is split into a "stem" (the first digit or digits) and a "leaf" (usually the last digit).  The stem and leaf above shows the 19 test score of students in class.

Histogram - They are similar to a bar chart, but a histogram groups numbers into ranges.  The height of each bar shows how many fall into each range.  Because they are in ranges the bars are connected, the only time there would be a gap is if no one or thing was in that range.

Dot Plot - A dot plot is a statistical chart consisting of data points plotted on a fairly simple scale, typically using filled in circles like the one above, each dot represents a certain thing in this case the if it is blue it represents a boy and if it is pink it is a girl. The dot plot is graphing bed times in 2nd grade.

Some others we used in class but not pictured above.

Line Graphs - Used to show how data changes over time, continuous data.

Scatter Plots - Used to show relationship between 2 data sets.

Box Plots - Used to show Median, Quartiles and extremes of a data set.

There are other types of graphs but these are the ones we used primarily in class.  The National Center for Education Statistics, NCES has a very cool tool you can experiment with and make different graphs online.  I found the site to be very educational.

Displaying and Interpreting Data

This video does not show all graphs but it is catching and cute! Enjoy, Terri

Grab a Handful!

Professor hands you a box and says,"Grab a Handful!"  What do you do? Do you go small or do you really go BIG!
This was a great activity in class and it really showed us a good look into Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median and Mode. The measure of central tendency, in statistics, is a central or typical value for a probability distribution.  We had a class of 22 participants, we each grabbed a handful (cubes), the lowest grabbing 6 cubes and the largest handful was 22 cubes (by the way this is referred to as the Range).  We grabbed a total of 236 cubes all together in class.
A little Definitions:
Mean: Also called the average. Is best for numerical data without outliers.
Median:  The middle value of a data set when ordered least to greatest.  1/2 the data is above the median and 1/2 the data is below the median and is not affected by outliers.
Mode:  The most frequently occurring data point in the set.  Can be used with categorical or numerical data.

My Beautiful Classmates

More Beautiful Classmates

Now we find the Range of data by subtracting the least amount from the greatest amount of cubes grabbed which gives us a Range of data that is a 16. Most classmates had grabbed 9 cubes which is the Mode in the set. The value in the middle of the ordered set of numbers is the Median which was a 10 for this data set.
We did this activity in class with cubes and we all chose our own cubes and grabbed what we wanted.  Our Professor then set us loose to find other students with the same cubes and then set us loose again to find the median of the cubes, classmates were setting up in groups of 9,some trying to give away extra cubes and what we realized was the Median was 10 not 9 but it was a fun realistic activity to do and a great break the ice activity into measures of central tendency.
I had to share this video since I have a new love for Math Antics and it does a great job at describing all you need to know to get you rolling with Mean, Median and Mode! Also check out Central Tendency  at A Maths Dictionary for Kids  Jenny Eather has a great resource for teachers that is AMAZING and its for all Mathmatics check it out Jenny Eather Resources

Leave to Sammi to go big with a huge handful of cubes Lil Miss 22, *just teasin*,
Terri