Data Analysis Summary

Tuesday, July 17

Nancy reported from the Program Committee:

  • We will need more presentation time for the Working Groups‹we may alter the schedule a bit (possibly adding some evening sessions)
  • Carol shared the schedule for the International group‹they will have short breaks, and people have volunteered to talk with them
  • Brian Hopkins, who has TI-92 experience, may host a nightly session

Marie reported from the Internet Committee:

  • we are working towards constant communication throughout the year by using the Discussion Group on the PCMI site

Carol introduced Norm Webb, a researcher from the University of Wisconsin, who will be visiting with us for a couple of days. She also wanted to discuss our Data Group future schedule, since Roger will be leaving tomorrow and Carol may be taken away to work with the International group. So, we are on our own for a bit. We decided that our main focus would be placed on an Algebra activity. We also would like to create a posting of challenging problems using FATHOM, possibly creating a family of topics that might be used with our activities. A suggestion was also made to use FATHOM to analyze Sketchpad.

Art explained the process for entering into the group discussions on the PCMI website during the year. We will get printed instructions and electronic reminders with the needed info to participate from the Math Forum.

Carol suggested we create a format for setting up activities using FATHOM. She also suggested that we gather student work during the school year. The following is one example which we may want to emulate:

Objectives
Standards
Materials
Teacher Notes
  • Prerequisites for the learner
  • Teacher hints for the activity
  • Introductory questions
  • Wrap-up questions
  • Solutions
  • Assessment suggestions
The Activity
Assessment Material
Extensions
References

For our presentation to the HSTP we will be taking data from the survey and show the various aspects of FATHOM. The physics group may also give us data that we might play around with.

Bill Finzer is checking on getting us the teacher version of FATHOM at the student version price.

We then went to the lab to focus on our algebra problem. While working within FATHOM we discovered that one cannot enter N/A in a numeric category. It must be kept blank. All the data we need is entered into our FATHOM collection and we will continue working on Thursday and Friday.

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