Narrative of two Lessons on Organizing, Labeling, and Analyzing data in a Rhode island ABE/preGED classroom

Resource:  EMPower’s Many Points Make a Point, Data and Graphs:  Lesson 2—Most of Us Eat and Lesson 3—Displaying Data in a New Way

This year, for this ABE-GED class that was targeted for participating in the research, there have been 2 significant limiting conditions: (1) Open/rolling enrollment and (2) a difference in the immediate goals of the students.

(1) Open entry: This factor has been a significant deterrent in general to building skills, meeting student needs in a coherent fashion, and, especially, conducting research in an organized and statistically significant fashion. The initial group of 9 students (out of 15 enrolled in the class but not there the day we discussed and signed agreements) who signed the contract to permit their work to be used did not all continue to attend regularly throughout the semester. Therefore, after engaging in initial activities (from the first lesson, Countries in Our Closets), we waited to follow up with the same group on next steps. It just did not happen. The attendance factor prohibited it. That said, subsequent Lessons 2 and 3, which were done with some of the same students plus others present those days, worked well.

(2) Differing immediate goals: Some of the students in the ABE-GED class were focused on passing the GED Exam in short order; they did not tolerate well deviating from what they perceived as activities directly connected to passing the tests. "Too easy...I can do this stuff already." Others knew that the exam was a long-term goal and were more likely to be willing to engage in activities that would build skills for the long run. 

What was planned and why

Students will:

• Respond to a survey question

• Examine the results of the survey and decide how to organize the responses: N various ways to organize the data, decide on best labels for categories, and sort the data

• Display data in 3 ways: a frequency graph, a bar graph, and a circle graph

• Analyze the conclusions that can be drawn from each of the graphs the language of fractions and percents. They will compare what is communicated, or not communicated (hidden) by each type of graph, as well as discuss what the results mean in terms of significance:  Who cares? how accurate are the conclusions beyond the sample group?