This week I will be studying Statistics with both Year 8 (UK, age 12-13) and Year 12 (UK, age 16-17). This prompted me to revisit my Statistics and Probability Resources list and happily I was reminded of some of the excellent resources available. (This is one of many lists on the I’m Looking For……page).
To highlight a few sites from that list:
From the always excellent Standards Unit, we have ‘Mostly Statistics‘. An activity I particularly like which has worked very well in class is S4 Understanding mean Median Mode and Range, selecting the link takes you to a new page which includes a PowerPoint for the activity with an introduction and the solutions.
I have mentioned Hans Rosling’s excellent use of Gap Minder before. Note the links to a guide to the software and a page for teachers.
For more data sets, also for some very useful Excel files see Douglas Butler’s collection.
Another site I posted on some time ago is Mike Hadden’s excellent collection of resources which includes several Statistics resources.
For older students Jonny Griffiths has a wonderful collection of activities – Making Statistics Vital.
An excellent source of real data for students, from unicef, ‘The State of the World’s Children‘; choosing a report for any year will show you several downloads including some under the heading Statistics; these include Excel files such as this: SOWC_2013_Stat_Tables_EFS_FINAL,
The Tools and Calculators section of the list includes virtual dice, also coins and dice simulations.
A quote to end the list!
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
Mark Twain.
Muy útil, muy practico 🙂
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Very interesting list and very useful, thanks Colleen.
The Bowland mini-tasks contain a few very nice statistical tasks, too, I used some in lessons and they usually work really well. Bowland tasks come with the added bonus of lots of good questions and some assessment guidance against the key processes in maths!
http://www.bowland.org.uk/assessment/tasks.htm
Thank you for the reminder about the Bowland tasks Anja (these are linked to on the Rich Tasks page: http://colleenyoung.wordpress.com/rich-tasks/). Would you recommend any tasks in particular for Statistics?
I have used ‘Counting Trees’ to discuss the impact of sampling with a Stats GCSE class discussing specific sampling methods but this could be discussed without this specific knowledge. Softdrinks is great as a starter to discuss conclusions on samples and I intend to use ‘German vs English’ as a starter later this week to discuss the interpretation and use of pie charts.(Update to follow!)
I love these tasks since they are truly rich(hence they rightly ‘live’ in your rich task list) and stimulate some really nice discussions.
Thanks for your blog again – it really makes me think about some of my favorite resources every weekend, too.
Anja
Colleen
You might find my page of Excel resources (and data sets) of interest:
http://www.tsm-resources.com/useful-files.html
Douglas
Indeed I do find it of interest Douglas – added to the growing list! Thank you. Post updated!