Used Numbers: Collecting and Analyzing Real Data

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Data analysis can provide a powerful and relevant approach to teaching key mathematical skills to elementary school children. It provides a meaningful context for the use of computation skills. It involves students directly with important mathematical ideas that are applicable to science, social science, and problem solving. It is a vehicle for bringing real applications of mathematics into the classroom. It is a topic that is familiar to teachers. And calculators and computers provide tools for collecting and analyzing data in the classroom that previously have not been available. This project will develop recommendations, prototype materials, and calculator and computer activities to be infused into a new K-6 curriculum strand on data analysis. The materials will emphasize age- appropriate data analysis skills such as counting, comparing, classifying, looking for patterns, finding central tendencies and variation, and predicting trends. This project will target a broad range of students, especially those who have historically been underserved (girls, minorities, and disadvantaged students). Project materials will reach approximately 10,000 teachers through a network that will distribute a newsletter as well as the student materials. Videotapes will be produced for use in teacher education.