Aisling Leavy, Susan Friel, James Mamer
Students
need time and experience to develop essential understandings when they explore
data analysis. In this article, the reader gains insight into confusion that
may result as students think about summarizing information about a categorical
data set that is attempting to use, in particular, the median. The authors
highlight points to consider in helping students unpack these essential
understandings.
Peter Kloosterman, Zachary Rutledge, Patricia Kenney
In addition
to data on overall performance since 1973, this article presents NAEP data on
items that were recently released to the public. They are presented as examples
of current student achievement in relation to achievement in the 1980s.
Performance was stable or improving on most of the released items, with
greatest improvement on items measuring knowledge of perimeter, percentages,
and algebraic thinking.
Samuel Obara
Three sets
of activities are presented in the form of puzzles. These activities focus on
students’ investigations of three-dimensional models, observing how they look
and feel. The improvement of students’ spatial sense and conceptual understanding
after experiencing the activities is described.
Camille McCue
The television show
Deal or or Deal
and an Excel spreadsheet help students see how understanding probability and mean-and the concept of expected value (EV)-can lead to game show wins.