Stats, Common Core Style

Today in Ethnostats, we take the Chapter 15 Quiz on Illuminate. This quiz contains two big questions, but each of them has multiple parts, so in reality there are 13 little questions to answer. These questions direct students to find certain probabilities (including conditional probabilities) and explain why certain events are disjoint or independent. One question is on whether taking Stats and Computer courses in college are disjoint or independent, particularly among Biology majors for which one of those courses is required.  The other one is very relevant to Ethnostats class -- where admission to a certain high school magnet program in Texas is dependent or independent of race. Based on the data given in the problem, students of Asian descent are less likely to be accepted into the program. (Is this due to affirmative action? Who knows -- the quiz only asks students to calculate the probabilities, not speculate on the reasons behind the given data.) Speaking of college, today's ...

Today is the state math test here in California, and so I'll do "A Day in the Life" today. Three weeks ago, I focused on the majority of my students -- the seniors -- as they took there California Science Test. But this time, the focus switches to me as a teacher and test proctor since again, the most of my students are seniors who are not  testing today. 8:00  -- I arrive at the special classroom that has been set up for testing, along with fifteen juniors. Of these 15 students, two of them are in my own math classes (one girl from Calculus, one guy from Ethnostats). As I set up the online CAT (computer-adaptive test) for the students, I can't help but think about the testing mishaps I had back at the old charter school five years ago. First of all, recall that I never quite made it to the day of the actual test. Instead, most of my interaction with the testing website is related to SBAC Prep and all the practice tests that I had to give each week. I had trouble figu...

In Ethnostats, we continue with the next three pages in Chapter 16, on probability models. Students continue with the binomial model including mean (expected value) and standard deviation, and thus how the normal model can be used to approximate the binomial model. Due to so many recent holidays, it's been time since we've had an all-classes Monday schedule.  The last such Monday was three weeks ago -- but originally I thought it would be a minimum day and so I'd scheduled quiz corrections for that day. This time I knew in advance that it's not a minimum day -- so no corrections are planned for today, but it's a bit rushed when I'm so used to teaching block periods. And so, for example, I discuss a five-part previous homework problem as the Warm-Up. One of them requires using the TI calculator (binompdf and binomcdf), and so I take time to show the students all the steps. Then I find myself rushed to prepare them for the second problem (relating binomial back to...

Today in Ethnostats, we proceed with the next six pages in Chapter 16, on models of probability. These pages are all about Bernoulli trials and finding expected value and standard deviation of binomial models. I was considering doing a short activity on the next page of the Stats Scrapbook, but I decided not to. The last interactive notebook page we completed was 30, and I think I'll make 31 the last page. This will be a concluding activity leading up to the final project in mid-May. This might be a video project -- and if it is a video, then I want most of the points to be from the video, not notebook pages. So I probably won't do many more notebook pages before mid-May. So instead, I have the students take notes on the chapter, and then give them time to do the homework assignment in class. Notice that this weekend will be our promotional dance -- the first prom held since before the pandemic. Aware that these juniors and seniors have never had a prom, I wish not to overwhelm...

There are no more school holidays between Easter and Memorial Day. So while there was only a Little March (rather than a Big March), there really is a Long April/May -- a Spring Fever stretch. Today in Ethnostats, we move on to Chapter 16 of the Stats text, on probability models. In this chapter, the students learn how to find an expected value (mean) and standard deviation from a probability model. The chapter opens with the idea that insurance (specifically life insurance) is a form of gambling. I tell the students about an episode of The Simpsons  in which the family's neighbor, Ned Flanders, loses his house in a hurricane. But Flanders doesn't have home insurance because he, as a devout Christian, is opposed to all forms of gambling -- including insurance. And speaking of gambling, I tell my class about poker. A professional poker player's job is to maximize his (or her) expected value (average win rate) and minimize the standard deviation (to avoid huge wins -- and mor...

Today in Ethnostats, we finished the Jackie Robinson Day projects that we started this week. Recall that this includes "Think Pair Share" on the two articles (one of which mentions the school-to-prison pipeline at Robinson's alma mater, Pasadena Muir High School). The main event happening with all classes this week is progress reports. Today marks the last day of the so-called "third quarter" -- and at the main high school in the district, it's the second report card out of three for the second semester, logically suggesting the five-sixths point of the year. Notice that today is Day 144, so mathematically speaking, we're through neither 3/4 nor 5/6 of the year, but 144/180 = 4/5. And this is why the big tests and projects in my classes are due this week. While Ethnostats classes finish their Robinson projects, the Trig class took its Chapter 3 Test on radian measure and the unit circle. And Calculus also had its Chapter 6 Test -- well, sort of. Yes, it...

This week is a project in my Ethnostats classes. It's definitely not the final video project, which I'm now saving for after Chapter 16 in May. So what project is it? As usual, I check the calendar and what projects my predecessors did at this time of year. In baseball, coming up this week is Jackie Robinson Day. (As I wrote on the old blog, I usually watch the 42  movie each year on April 15th.) Jackie Robinson Day is a great day for Ethnostats, with the usual annual commentary on the decline of blacks in baseball. On the official syllabus, I find a link to an article by Marilyn Elias on the school-to-prison pipeline: https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/spring-2013/the-school-to-prison-pipeline Believe it or not, there's a way to tie this two topics into a single package. The link is another article on the official syllabus -- an LA Times  article by Sandy Banks about black students and suspensions: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-dec-01-me-race1-story...

Today in Ethnostats, we work in Chapter 15, on rules of probability. The students learn an addition rule where the events need not be disjoint, and a multiplication rule where the events need not be independent. In my last post, I wrote that I would give a 12-point assignment today. I end up assigning the questions at the end of the chapter, even though the Chapter 15 quiz is several weeks away. The students must answer the first 12 questions on that page -- in other words, it's a dozen questions for a dozen points. One of these questions asks about probability using playing cards. I've been meaning to give the students a playing card worksheet, and so I finally do this today. The students glue this into page 28 of their Stats Scrapbooks -- and as it turns out, the 12-point assignment happens to be Assignment #28. So the next few interactive notebook pages and assignment numbers will line up. Meanwhile, in Calculus yesterday, we moved on to Section 6.5, on average value of a fu...

Today is the first day of state standardized testing at my school. Yes, with the pandemic waning and things getting back to normal, it means that spring season is testing season in schools around the US. Here is California, high school students are tested in math, language arts, and science. While only juniors (along with grades 3-8) take the math and ELA assessments, the science test is supposed to be taken in grades 5, 8, and "once in high school" -- it's up to the discretion of each district to decide which year students take the high school science test. Well apparently, my district chose senior year  for the California Science Test (or CAST). And today is CAST day. With most of my students being seniors, it means that most of my students spend their day on the big science test. According to Tina Cardone's original list, a "state testing day" is one of the special days for which we should do "A Day in the Life." And since there's no monthly...

According to the calendar posted about two months ago, today was originally supposed to be the monthly minimum day for April. But on Friday, we received the message that it's now a regular Monday. Just like the loss of Open House, this is caused by the two days of school cancelled in January. Speaking of which, you might be wondering whether we'll have to make up those days in June or not. As it turns out, both the county and the state must approve the waiver. While LA County has approved it, we still have yet to hear from California. I assume that the state is more likely to accept it if the district shows that we aren't too far behind in minutes -- hence the cancellation of the minimum days. And of course, recall that I keep trying to time these quiz corrections to minimum days. If today were a minimum day, then we might as well spend it on corrections as there isn't much time for anything else. But if it's a regular day, then it would be more valuable as a teachi...