Explore the effect of outliers through an analysis of mean, median, and standard deviation. Your classes examine and compare these measures for two groups. They must make sense of a group that has a higher mean but lower median compared to a group with mean and median that is almost equal. Their examination should lead to a conclusion about spread and/or outliers.

Concepts

mean, median, standard deviation, two-way tables, outliers

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Additional Tags

math

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Instructional Ideas

• Provide collaborative groups with the student dialogue and ask them to write a summary of the discussion
• Have groups create a poster describing which class has the better pre-test score with data to support their conclusions

Classroom Considerations

• Requires a fundamental understanding of mean, median, and standard deviation

Pros

• Highlights key misconceptions
• Includes a rubric to assess group discussion

Cons

• None

Common Core

HSS-ID.A.2 HSS-ID.A.3 MP1 MP3 MP4 MP5