Module 2

Categorical Data Sort and Analysis

Thoughts before sorting: Before beginning my sort I struggled with trying to figure out what type of heading I could use that would be the best fit for a good chunk of the names. I thought about how many different categories each person could really be sorted into and then had to narrow them down into few groups.

Fame (TV, Music, Movies, etc.)	Religion	Activists/ Humanitarians	Royals	Authors/ Artists	Politics	Modern Technology
Oprah Winfrey	Jesus Christ	Rosa Parks	Queen Victoria	Jane Austen	Maxine Waters	Aaron Swartz
Lauren Graham	Jesus Christ	Nelson Mandela	Queen Elizabeth 1	Paulo Coelho	John F. Kennedy	Bill Gates
Drake		Malala Yousafzai	King Leonidas	Antoni Gaudi	Barack Obama	Mark Zuckerberg
		Haregewoin Teferra			Michelle Obama

Based on the data collected I see that our class is filled with many types of people. I know I, myself had a really hard time choosing just one person who I would want to have a conservation with. Many of the people that we choose had multiple different groups that they could have been sorted into. For example, I put Michelle Obama in Politics but I feel as though she could also be in Activists. Same with Oprah Winfrey, the reason I put her where I did is because when I first think of Oprah I think of her talk show and how that made her famous. What changes would you make to my sort Jennifer?

To go on further with this data you could ask questions like what Author would like like to have a conversation with? Or what Famous person in tv, music, or movie would you like to have a conversation with? Jennifer, if you got asked those who would you choose? For author I would choose Paulo Coelho like I already did but if asked about a famous person I would probably choose Ellen or Taylor Swift.

At first when I started sorting I had a group for authors and then I came across Antoni Gaudi who was an artist. When this happened I wasn’t completely sure what to do. If I should make a whole new group or add on to one. I decided to add onto authors because authors and artists to me are both forms of art.

A similar activity could be done with elementary students by asking things like favorite candy or tv show. They would get the data and then make a bar graph or other type of graph with the data that they received.

Statistics in the Elementary Grades

I personally can't really remember doing data collection activities like this is school, but maybe I just have a bad memory. I do remember doing an activity where each student got a bag of M&M's and we have to sort our bag into the different colors and then make a bar graph of our data. After we made out graph we had to compare our data to a classmates and everyone's data was

different. Also a few years ago before I moved to North Carolina I helped out in my cousin's 3rd grade classroom and her students were doing an activity similar to what I did in school, but theirs was with jelly beans (it was around Easter). I remember the students having fun with this because after they did their data collection of their jelly beans they got to eat them. haha Jennifer have you seen activities like this?

The data collections I have done or witnessed are different then say the shoe one in the article because the shoe one depends on multiple factors (age, season, weather, etc.).

How Many Pockets

When watching the video I first noticed that the teacher first just asked the students the question "How many pockets do you have?". The students then started counting. The teacher then asked again but this time talked about what was considered a pocket, at this point you see some students re counting their number of pockets. When starting to go over the data of how many pockets their were students who thought it was weird that someone had only 1 pocket they weren't thinking about shirt pockets. While going over the data and students pointing out pockets in their shirts it makes students double check their number of pockets and have to change the answer they first said. Do you think if you did this activity you would forget a pocket when first counting?

Exploring Questions

The four components of the statistical process starts off with Formulating the Question. After that you need to start to collect the data. After collecting the data you need to you need to then look at that data and analyze it. Finally your last step is to Interpret what your results mean. The question I would like to ask the class is: How many days in a week do you drink soda? I know this question will get multiple answers and some might not know for sure but on average most people know how much they drink it.

I choose to observe people in front of me at the store. I noticed that 3 of them were men and that 2 were women. I noticed that 1 had blonde hair, 2 had black hair, and 2 were bald. I also noticed that 1 was wearing flip flops, 2 were wearing tennis shoes, 1 was wearing heels and 1 was wearing work boots. Before doing this I didnt think about how much you could collect data on them based on just looking at them for a few seconds. Did you think it would be that easy to collect data?