Teaching statistical report-writing for Level 2 and 3 internal assessments

1. Teaching statistical report-writing for Level 2 and 3 internal assessments Dr Nicola Ward Petty Statistics Learning Centre n.petty@statsLC.com 2013

2. Plan • Report writing • Issues • Strategies • Statistics Learning Centre resources • Questions

3. Background Quiz • How long have you been teaching mathematics? • How long have you been teaching statistics? • How confident do you feel teaching trigonometry? Very confident Confident Not confident Very unconfident • How confident do you feel teaching statistical report-writing?Very confident Confident Not confident Very unconfident • How do you feel about the new curriculum?

4. Statistics and Report-writing • Discuss with your neighbour. • (Don’t all start at number 1) • Why is it important for students to be able to write good statistical reports? • How well are your students doing at writing reports? Why might they not be doing as well as you would like them to? • What are you doing to help them develop their report-writing skills? • Why is it difficult for mathematics teachers to teach report-writing?

5. Statistics and Report-writing • Why is it important for students to be able to write good statistical reports? • You don’t realise whether you understand or not until you try to write it down. The process is important. • Better critics of other reports • Part of the literacy initiative • Useful skill for employment – report writing, and literacy generally • Required for marking!

6. Statistics and Report-writing • How well are your students doing at writing reports? Why are they not doing as well as you would like them to? • Writing too much – brain spill – 65 pages! • Repeating themselves • Not sure what is relevant so put everything in… • But leave out important aspects • Non-sentences • Poorly structured • Not enough linkage to the context …or… • Too much context and not enough analysis • Some are great – generally from social-science students

7. Statistics and Report-writing • What are you doing to help them develop their report-writing skills? • Guidelines • Feedback • Practice • Homework • In class

8. Statistics and Report-writing • Why is it difficult for mathematics teachers to teach report-writing? • Not used to teaching or assessing written English • May feel uncomfortable and lacking in skills • Few resources available to help • May be unconvinced of the necessity of the task • The students themselves are not happy with writing. • Not sure of what is needed by moderators.

9. Activity • Time series output from iNZight. • Monthly retail sales in $m in the USA of different categories. • Raw data. • From http://www.economagic.com/cenret.htm • Your task • Find something interesting in the graphs. • Write down three sentences of five words or fewer. • Share your sentences with your neighbour(s). • Choose your best and worst sentences and write in big letters on paper to show the class.

10. Time series output

11. Show us what you wrote! • Short idea sentence to complete detailed sentence: • Books peak in August. • This is a good idea sentence! • Books = the retail sales of books in the USA • Peak in August = are greater in August than in any other month. • Convert to a sentence: • The retail sales of books in the USA are greater in August than in any other month of the year. • Quantify: On average the sales in August are approximately twice what they are in other months except for December and January. • Hypothesise: This is probably because August is the beginning of the school year in the USA, and people are buying textbooks. • Possibly even some background investigation!

12. Teaching strategies • The report should not be the first thing they write • Small exercises for homework, peer review • good feedback is necessary – descriptive rather than evaluative. • Checklists so they can see if the ideas are communicated well. • Warm-up sentences at the start of class • Write ALL the time while doing the analysis – clarifies thinking • “Fill in the gaps” activities give structure • Make your own from a report. Remove words. (Cloze exercise) • On-line activities (NZStats 3 from Statistics Learning Centre) • Give examples and formats – writing guides • Page or time limits in assessments (self-defence for teachers)

13. Writing Guides from StatsLC • Teach principles as well as guiding assignment • All four internal standards: • Time Series – Like a business report • Bivariate – Scientific • Inference – Includes explaining the ideas of bootstrapping and confidence intervals • Experimental Design – Description of the whole process so that it could be replicated • Feel free to copy and use our writing guides, but leave the branding on them. • Told they need more “research” to suit moderators. • There are exercises to go with them on the StatsLC.com site.

15. Feedback

16. Features of NZ Stats 3 • Immediate Feedback • Easy access – any device • Up-to-date and responsive • Engaging – will have “badges” soon

17. How to use NZ Stat 3 • Homework • Teachers assign a certain activity or quiz for homework. • Students can show their completion by printing out the results. • Classroom enrichment • Use the activities in class time to complement other work. • “flipped” classroom • Review • The exercises in NZ Stats 3 can be used repeatedly. • Large database so students get a different test each time. • Students can also track their own progress. • Good for Scholarship as includes all standards. • Help with assignments • NZ Stats 3 provides guidelines and practice in report-writing