Averages and range: increase, decrease, same?

This type of activity is known as Practice. Please read the guidance notes here, where you will find useful information for running these types of activities with your students.

This activity works a little different to the other Practice ones on the site, although I am not convinced it works as well as the Box Plot one that follows a similar format – hopefully people can suggest improvements!

The idea is that during the Example-Problem pair, students practice the basics of how to calculate the mean, median, mode and range from a list of data. But then, instead of mindlessly practicing this, they are challenged to first reflect on what has changed from the set of data, and then form an expectation as to the impact this will have on each of the four measures – will they increase, decrease or stay the same. They can then check this by carrying out the necessary calculations. In order to start the sequence, students will need to work out the actual values from the first set of data from the Intelligent Practice section.

1. Example-Problem Pair

2. Intelligent Practice

3. Answers

4. Downloadable version

 

5. Alternative versions

  • feel free to create and share an alternate version that worked well for your class following the guidance here