Students were modeling the process of solving this problem on a calculator. In all such problems, the first step is to "assign digits". What that means is given the table of probabilities, you have to create a list in your calculator corresponding to a random variable X (in this case discrete). It is a hard process for them to think through because they haven't practiced enough. Fathom is one more way to model this process.
Class strength was at 17 in place of 25, the rest were on a junior field trip to the South for following a Civil Rights trail. Yet again, a class that was far less disruptive than before. Amazingly the screens mask ratehr than provide the distraction.
Spots that glow:
- "Oh! I get it..." - a boy looking at the way they created the collection - by "assigning digits".
- Get good at Fathom - it is a tool for homework - see how much more we could do - said Jackie
- Pointed out where the law comes into effect, by asking everyone to take one sample of 5. Then asking them to compare how many times they got the number "5" with it's occurence in the distribution of the population. After that, she colected number fo "5"s from the entire class(which was a sample of size 85) and pointed out how much closer it was to the theoritical probability of getting a "5".
- In our desire to promote exploration based learning, I realized that our Fathom activities rarely model the typical(and endless number of) AP Stats homework problems.
