| Whole Number Arithmetic Online Documentation |
Use Statistics |
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Math Skill Builders: Whole Number Arithmetic provides opportunities for students to practice describing and interpreting data. At the end of each Assignment and Practice the program displays results of the activity. The program records this data to display in Reports. Use the results, and the Reports, to help the learner learn to:
You can use specific language to help the learner interpret and discuss the information presented in the results of Practice and Assignment, and in the Reports. Use vocabulary to quantify and compare the data from different activities, from different dates, and from different operations. Use words and phrases such as:
more, most, less, least, best, worst, faster, fastest, slower, slowest fewer than, greater than, less than, never, sometimes, always You can ask questions, such as the following examples, that require:
Reading the data,
How long did it take to do each problem? What percentage of the problems did you solve correctly on this date? How many levels have you completed in each operation? In which operation are you at the highest level? Which level did you get the most right in diagnosis (assignment, practice)? In which operation are you at the highest level in Practice (diagnosis, etc.)? Which day did you do the most work? Did you solve problems faster or slower over time? Which level did you do problems the fastest in practice (diagnosis)? At which level did you do problems the slowest? What was your best (or worst) time (or score)? What was your fastest time? What was your slowest time? Can you order your times from slowest to fastest?
How many skill levels left to go? How many levels do you have left in each operation?
How many more practices than assignments have you completed? How many problems would you have to get right to do 100%? How many more problems do you need to get correct to get 90%? How much faster is your best time than your worst time? How much did your time improve in the first few times you used the program? How much longer did it take to do problems at one level than another level?
Learners can see that data can be displayed in different ways by looking at data about their progress in charts and in graph form. On each of the Reports ( Status , Score , Time ) choose Data to see the numeric information in a table. Choose Graph to see bar graphs. You can help learners learn to read and interpret the meaning of the data by questioning, explaining, and discussing the data. See the preceding section for the specific vocabulary and suggestions for the types of language you can use when looking at the data that will help learners learn how to interpret the information the data represents.
Learners can interpret data to make predictions, or plan future activities. They can use the data to make decisions based on the information presented by the data. By looking at the patterns in the data in Reports, learners can predict: how long it will take to do future skill levels, what percentage they will get correct when trying a new skill, whether they will progress faster through one operation than another, and so on.
You can encourage learners to come up with their own questions from the displays of data. They can also decide what data should be collected. If Math Skill Builders does not gather this data, they can collect and organize their own data. They can try to present the data in other forms (for example line graphs or circle graphs).
Learners can find the mean (or average) time for doing problems, or average percentage scored. They can arrange the times or scores in order from the smallest to the largest number and identify the median (the middle number in the set). They can look at the lists of scores or times and find the mode (the one that occurs the most often). They can identify the range of times or scores by identifying the smallest and largest numbers. After identifying the mean, median, mode and range in the scores and times, learners can answer additional questions about the data, such as:
Which date did you get the median score? Which score occurred most often? ..least often? Take the average score for each operation, tell the average of those scores. How much faster than average is your fastest time? |