When I last dropped by my own blog here to write I was cooking up an idea for my AP Statistics class. I wanted to write a good activity to explore data using my FitBit. I was lucky enough to win a FitBit Flex in a raffle and I’ve been fascinated by it for the past month. I had four volunteers who also shared their FitBit data with me and I put my data (identified) with the data of my four brave volunteers (not identified) and developed what feels like a pretty good activity. Yesterday I displayed my data in an EXCEL sheet before deciding I was better off in a Google sheet. We looked at my data together and with Desmos open we transferred some data two columns at a time and looked at lines of best fit. We tossed around some questions that seemed interesting, we questioned some of the data presented (especially the first data line on the sheet identified as Doherty Data), we made guesses about what relationships were hiding. We discussed the impact of height and weight and just generally had a pretty good time noticing and wondering together. Last night I combined all the data into a Google sheet (which can be found here) and I condensed some of the questions that came up yesterday and wrote them up on a Google form (which can be found here) and today I just set my kiddos loose. We have access to a computer lab so everyone had their own space to work. I dealt cards at random to spread the sheets around, I wandered and answered questions about moving columns on google sheets and how to make Desmos (like this graph) work its regression magic. I had discussions about resting heart rate, about whether calories burned or active calories were more interesting to look at. We remembered the dangers with extrapolation when discussing the y-intercept of these regression equations. We tried to figure out which mystery person might be taller or which one might be heavier. There is real joy in listening in on these conversations, but my biggest highlight today is that I got to show off the spirit of my classroom to a visitor today. He remarked on what a treat it was to witness ‘sense-making’ in action. I want to revisit my questions and make them better next time around, but I am pretty pleased so far. Tomorrow, we’ll start class with about ten to fifteen minutes to wrap up this activity and then we’ll share our discoveries with each other.
Right now my AP Calculus BC class is taking their final test of the term. I hope I am as happy grading those as I am thinking about my AP Statistics team right now.