My 9th grade class has a quiz on statistics concepts tomorrow – standard deviation, interpreting graphs, outliers and the normal distribution. It’s a real cornucopia of stats ideas! To review, today’s class goal was to collect class-wide data using a fun applet, share using the collaboration space in OneNote, use a website to assess the data, and write our statistical summaries. A fun day filled with stats fairies and pixie dust! Here was the lineup:
Collect data using Shapesplosion – an online game (think the old Perfection Game) developed by folks from Grinnell College. The plan was to play with, and without color. Aside: it’s OK if you disappear for a while to play with this site, it’s super-fun!- Share data using the collaboration space on OneNote.
- Use the artofstat.com web apps to make graphs and produce statistical summaries.
This is what I had in mind….Here’s what really happened
- Shapesplosion didn’t work – while I rehearsed the site on my laptop, it didn’t work for the kids. It was a Flash issue, and stopping to figure this out wasn’t in the cards. After a few minutes of hemming and hawing, I settled upon a far less fun data collection idea: Tell me a temperature you deem “cold” when you go outside, and one you deem “hot”. Not nearly as sexy as the time data I wanted…but hey, I needed a data set. But at least we have data until…..
- ArtOfStat was glitchy and wasn’t playing nice with copy/paste from OneNote. Kids are getting restless, we haven’t done much stats review, and I am definitely starting to lose my “big” class.
So, what do you do when a lesson goes south, your objective is slowly slipping away and the kids smell chum in the water?
Remember:
It’s not the kids’ fault when your plans go kaput. You may feel like some yelling is in order, but breathe, calm down, and be honest about what went wrong.
Student learning can’t be compromised because things go south. “There’s no time” is an easy out when we get rushed, but maintaining lesson fidelity is far more important than rushing to get to “stuff”.
Maintain clear expectations. Eventually all of my students were able to review some, and I had to alter my plan of attack. But stopping class, making sure we were all on the same page and understood the statistical expectations was necessary.
It won’t be the last time stuff goes wrong….roll with it…and laugh along with it.
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