Which MacBook to Buy?
As a math instructor and former technology educator, two priority goals I have when creating lessons are to make each one relevant and to incorporate technology when applicable. Recently, I implemented these goals for my 6th grade math classes with a lesson on Measures of Central Tendency. I began with a pre-assessment on the definitions and formulae for mean, mode, median, range, and outlier. Instead of just providing random numbers for students to compute, I incorporated real and relevant data on various technology products. The students enjoyed calculating the means, modes, and medians for the prices, weights, and displays of different laptops and comparing the results. The lesson did not end there. On the following day, the students all created spreadsheets to display the data and then continued to learn how to enter formulae into cells. I look forward to having students expand their technology knowledge and apply their spreadsheet skills with future math lessons.
