Students had the choice to use Footloose or FACEing Math to practice Mean, Median, Mode and Range. In order to use some classroom data for our next topic (double bar graphs), I kept track of the number of students (broken down by gender) who chose each activity. I ended up with this chart:
Tomorrow, students will use this information to create two different double bar graphs.
Looking at the data, I think it's interesting that period 2, which is generally a higher-ability class, had a pretty even amount of students choosing each activity. The boy/girl numbers were flip-flopped.....I did expect that more girls would choose the drawing activity than the Footloose. In the class that struggles the most, the majority of students chose FACEing Math, and the students that chose Footloose were the higher-ability students in that class. Were their choices influenced by the drawing aspect (or lack of drawing), or by the fact that FACEing Math offers two answer choices, where Footloose offers none?
Before classes began, I had expected that more girls than boys would choose FACEing Math, because of the drawing aspect; but it appears that the higher-ability students (male and female) tended to choose Footloose..... interesting. I certainly can't come to any conclusions, but I think it's interesting. I'm glad I gave them the choice!
|
Class Period
|
Footloose
|
FACEing Math
|
||
|
|
Boys
|
Girls
|
Boys
|
Girls
|
|
Period 2
|
8
|
2
|
3
|
8
|
|
Period 3
|
5
|
1
|
8
|
7
|
|
Period 4
|
2
|
6
|
7
|
10
|
|
Period 6
|
6
|
5
|
8
|
8
|
Tomorrow, students will use this information to create two different double bar graphs.
Looking at the data, I think it's interesting that period 2, which is generally a higher-ability class, had a pretty even amount of students choosing each activity. The boy/girl numbers were flip-flopped.....I did expect that more girls would choose the drawing activity than the Footloose. In the class that struggles the most, the majority of students chose FACEing Math, and the students that chose Footloose were the higher-ability students in that class. Were their choices influenced by the drawing aspect (or lack of drawing), or by the fact that FACEing Math offers two answer choices, where Footloose offers none?
Before classes began, I had expected that more girls than boys would choose FACEing Math, because of the drawing aspect; but it appears that the higher-ability students (male and female) tended to choose Footloose..... interesting. I certainly can't come to any conclusions, but I think it's interesting. I'm glad I gave them the choice!
Ellie
ReplyDeleteI love your blog. I found you from TPT forum! I teach 1st grade but I am passing your blog along to a middle school math teacher friend of mine!
It looks like you are doing some fun things with your students! They are lucky!
Laura ~ First Grade Spies
Thank you so much!
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