Organizing Data

Prior to the class, students completed part of a project in which they collected data from a sample (random sample generated using a random number generator on the internet or on a graphing calculator). As students come in to the computer lab, they log into a computer and open Excel. I will briefly explain how to input data into Excel in an organized manner, how to adjust cell sizes, and how to change the format of data they input. They will have had a brief introduction in Excel in a technology class previously, so they are somewhat familiar with the program already. The students will be given a few minutes to input their data.

After all students have their data in Excel, I will show them how to sort data. I will also walk them through the data analysis bank, specifically the histogram feature that not only puts the data in a bar graph that can be adjusted into a histogram, but it also organizes the data in a frequency distribution. We will also explore some of the chart features in Excel, discussing how sometimes, Excel doesn't understand the data and can't display a chart in a meaningful way, so sometimes you have to use the frequency distribution. Additionally, I will show them some of the formulas that may be useful to them, such as average, standard deviation, median, etc. After some time exploring these features, each student must choose and make 3 different data displays or summaries that appropriately show the data along with 1 misleading display. They are given the rest of the time to construct and print these displays or summaries.

Another component of the project included some written descriptions about how they conducted their survey, collected their data, descriptions of the types of variables they had, and what is misleading about their last graph and why it is important to recognize misleading data. They can also use any remaining computer time working on these written portions of the project.

Toward the end of the period, we will discuss some things they learned in Excel today that they found useful or interesting while they are saving their work and logging out of the computers.