"Mathematical Thinking: From Assessment Items to Challenging Tasks" is a compilation of 36 problem-based lessons that encourage students to engage in productive struggle and deep thinking. Its 36 full-length lessons for grades 2-8 are each inspired by an actual test item from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).…

In the author's experience with this activity, students struggle with the idea of representativeness in probability. Therefore, this student misconception is part of the classroom discussion about the activities in this lesson. Representativeness is related to the (incorrect) idea that outcomes that seem more random are more likely to happen. This…

Every day, students collect, organize, and analyze data to make decisions. In this data-driven world, people need to assess how much trust they can place in summary statistics. The results of every survey and the safety of every drug that undergoes a clinical trial depend on the correct application of appropriate statistics. Recognizing the…

"Shake, Rattle, & Roll" is a new program developed by The Actuarial Foundation with Scholastic, provides dynamic real-world math content designed to build student skills while showing students the relevance of math to understanding their world and planning for their future. Math skills are increasingly important for students. According to the U.S.…

The purpose of these modules is to provide an introduction to the world of probability and statistics to accelerated mathematics students at the high school level. The modules also introduce students to real world math concepts and problems that property and casualty actuaries come across in their work. They are designed to be used by teachers and…

Discusses several measures of success for a simple game. Describes ways in which comparisons between players and comparisons between a player and simulation can be made. (Author/ASK)

Provides a classroom exercise and an example for illustrating the central limit theorem. (ASK)

Presents an activity to help students understand and appreciate the use of diagrams, particularly dot plots and stem-and-leaf diagrams. (ASK)

Issues of measurement are fundamental in statistics but are often overlooked in introductory courses. Presents an interactive exercise that encourages students to think critically about how things are measured and to realize that deciding how to measure something can determine the outcome of an investigation. (Author/ASK)

The concept of confidence intervals is difficult for students to grasp. Describes an activity that helps students understand what it means to have confidence in a process. (Author/ASK)

Describes an activity on data management and statistics in which students were asked to think of a topic and collect information on it to analyze and represent in graphs. (ASK)

Recounts 6th grade students' investigations of combinations and graph theory that arose from a claim made on a Steak'n Shake menu. (YDS)

Describes a practical classroom activity for sorting lists of numbers to lead to statistical analysis. (Author/ASK)

Offers an instructional approach and an exercise that can serve as a useful introduction to stratified random sampling. (ASK)

Presents two class activities for use with hypothesis testing in which students collect data to test for a difference in the mean number of chocolate chips per cookie between two brands. (Author/ASK)