5 Summary of Week 1
In this week you have been introduced to an overview of statistics, in particular, the process by which a statistical investigation is undertaken. You should now be able to communicate what is meant by the word statistics, the importance of context, and understand how to approach a problem using the data handling cycle. The importance of the planning stage of the cycle should be evident especially the thought that needs to go into the pose the question stage so that the information gathered is useful and valid.
Included here are ideas for how to incorporate the important elements of the data handing investigative process into the classroom when working with learners and the fact that it is not solely the responsibility of maths teachers to do so. Anyone working with data should have an understanding and appreciation of the data handling process.
In the remaining weeks of this course, you will work through the other stages of the data handling cycle paying particular attention to important elements that should be the feature of any classroom discussion.
Further sources
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces their own podcast, Statistically Speaking, which covers a range of statistical related discussions. Here is an episode linked to collecting data as discussed in week 1 of this course.
In The Field: Surveying the nation | National Statistical [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
The following OU report written for the Royal Society looks at context, variability, uncertainty, and the data cycle and provides an interesting perspective of the interplay between mathematics, data science, statistics and computing competencies in school curricula.