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Teaching statistical
report-writing for
Level 3 internal assessments
Dr Nicola Ward Petty
Statistics Learning Centre
n.petty@statsLC.com
2013
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Plan
Introduction
Report writing
• Issues
• Strategies
Statistics Learning Centre resources
Questions
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Introductions
I’m Nicola Ward Petty
Lecturer in Operations Research at University of Canterbury for 20
years.
Included applied statistics to commerce students.
Now director of the Statistics Learning Centre.
PhD in allocation of resources for the education of students who are
blind or vision-impaired.
School effectiveness, modelling, opportunity to learn.
With me: Dr Shane Dye
Also from UC. Similar background.
statsLC.com
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Background Quiz
a) How long have you been teaching mathematics?
b) How long have you been teaching statistics?
c) How confident do you feel teaching trigonometry?
Very confident
Confident
Not confident
Very unconfident
d) How confident do you feel teaching statistical report-writing?
Very confident
Confident
Not confident
Very unconfident
e) How do you feel about the new statistics curriculum?
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New standards and literacy
What literacy requirements do each of the standards have? Think of
reading as well as writing.
3.08
Time Series
3.09
Bivariate
3.10
Formal Inference
3.11
Experimental Design
3.12
Statistical Reports
3.13
Probability
3.14
Distributions
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Statistics and Report-writing
Discuss with your neighbour. (Don’t all start at number 1)
1. Why is it important for students to be able to write good statistical
reports?
2. How well are your students doing at writing reports?
Why might they not be doing as well as you would like them to?
3. What are you doing to help them develop their report-writing
skills?
4. Why is it difficult for mathematics teachers to teach reportwriting?
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Statistics and Report-writing
1. 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!
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Statistics and Report-writing
2. 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
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Statistics and Report-writing
3. What are you doing to help them develop their report-writing
skills?
•
Guidelines
•
Feedback
•
Practice
•
Homework
•
In class
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Statistics and Report-writing
4. Why is it difficult for mathematics teachers to teach reportwriting?
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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
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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 a good sentence and a not so good sentence about it.
 Share your sentences with your neighbour(s).
 Choose your best and worst sentences and write in big letters on paper to
show the class.
Time series output
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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.
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Teaching strategies
The report should not be the first thing they write
Literacy is part of the statistics curriculum
•
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
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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 limits in assessments (self-defence for teachers)
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Writing Guides
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.
There are exercises to go with them on the StatsLC.com site.
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Feedback
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More ideas (if room in brain)
Think about the role of context in a mathematics problem.
Now think about the role of context in a statistical investigation.
How are they different?
Where do the three external standards fit?
3.12
Evaluate reports
3.13
Probability
3.14
Distributions
How do we teach students to make sense of questions?
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Collaboration Request
I would be keen to work with a teacher on the literacy aspects of the
statistics curriculum.
I provide – sounding board, ideas, some classroom help
You provide – some time, students to play with
NOT a big formal research project. Just trying things out.
Talk to me later if you are interested.
How to use NZ Stat 3
on-line resources
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Homework
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Teachers assign a certain activity or quiz for homework.
•
Students can show their completion by printing out the results. (We provide weekly reports)
Classroom enrichment
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Use the activities in class time to complement other work.
•
“Flipped” classroom - see my blog on this
Review
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The exercises in NZ Stats 3 can be used repeatedly.
•
Large database so students get a different test each time.
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Students can also track their own progress.
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Good for Scholarship as includes all standards.
Help with assignments
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NZ Stats provides guidelines and practice in report-writing
Replace the textbook/homework book
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Cheaper and better! 
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Features of NZ Stats 3
Immediate Feedback
Easy access – any device
Up-to-date and responsive
Engaging – will have “badges” next year
Teachers can track activity and results
with weekly reports
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Weekly Report Example
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Talk to me about our
discounted
introductory site licences.
www.statsLC.com
statsLC.com
NZ Stats 3
3.08 Time Series
Video
Quiz to follow video
Instant
Feedback
Can be sat multiple times with different questions – until
all correct!
Summary of test
Progress indicators
Notes for iNZight
Datasets formatted ready
Interpreting output
Notes to guide assignment
Bivariate 3.09
Formal Inference 3.10
Experimental Design 3.11
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What else would you like?
Talk to me about our
discounted introductory site
licences.
www.statsLC.com