Mean, Median, or Mode

Which one is my pencil?

Made by activity set in classroom

Rationale
Determination of mean, median, and mode are often presented as rote process. However, in many instances, no conceptual meanings are associated with the algorithms or graphical methods.

Introducing the activity

Two factors should be considered before beginning this activity Choice of pencils and class size. Since one purpose of the activity is to have students find the mean and median lengths of pencils, do not use mechanical pencils. Use wooden pencils that have been sharpened to different lengths, and hand those to students for the activity.

Penciling in the activity

Although the emphasis of the activity is on statistical concepts, it begins with estimation and measurement. After students estimate the length of their pencil in centimetres, they measure the actual length. They record their values and those of the class in the table on activity sheet 1.

Discussion
Discuss with students how much their estimates differed from the actual measurements, followed by probable reasons for the differences.

 Since pencils cannot be folded or cut, students should next measure two strips of paper that are equal to the length of their pencil, then put their name and measurements on the strips for record-keeping purposes. It is important for students to be able to easily identify their pencil/paper strips from everyone elses.

Instruction for students

measure two strips of paper that are equal to the length of your pencil, then put your name and measurements on the strips for record-keeping purposes.

 Take one paper pencil from each student, organise them by length, and tape them together into one long strip. Collect the second paper pencil from each student, and keep them in a separate pile. The taped set should be used when finding the mean; the other set will be used when finding median and mode.

Physical determination of mean

Use the long taped strip and fold it numerous times to find the mean. See Activity sheet 2 The students simply fold the paper into the number of pieces equal to the number of observations (16 or 32). At this point, lead an informal discussion of powers of 2, since it will take either four or five folds to get 16 or 32 equal pieces, respectively.

 Once the paper folding is complete, students should be able to see the equal pieces while being able to view all the original pencils lengths. The length of each equal piece is the mean.

 Although this method enhances students understanding of mean, we feel it is important to explore the concept further. Students should compare their individual pencil length with the mean and explain why there are observations both above and below the mean.

 By using pencils that are sharpened to various lengths at the start, we control the variability of the data set. If our goal is to look at evenly distributed data, we will use pencils that do not have lengths at one extreme or the other. This allows students to see that the number of pencils above the mean as compared with those below the mean is roughly equivalent.

 If our goal is to examine outliers, we will distribute pencils that are much shorter or much longer. Students then see that balance is more difficult to create; more pencil lengths on one side or the other of the mean will provide a physical example of skewed data.

Mean and mode

Students finish their exploration of the mean by using the mathematical formula, which involves adding all the data and dividing by the number of pencils See activity sheet 3.

 Students should place the other class set of strips alongside each other, ordered from smallest to largest, resembling a staircase. Unimodal or bimodal?

 With the strips remaining in order, we now find the median. Since the data set will be an even number of observations, finding the median requires using the middle two observations. Quartiles?

outliers
Use extremely short or long pencils to illustrate the effect of outliers on the mean, and then contrast the effect of outliers on the median.

The big payoff

Ask the students, what will happen if only one pencil was in the data set? Student discover that they cannot make a fold, so a number raised to the zero power is 1.

conclusion
Leaning intentions: using hands on physical models for familiar concepts, revisiting estimation and measurement and introducing power of 2. KC: Thinking (clarifying concepts), appreciating variability in real world: using language, symbol and text; cooperation, helping others, working together.