Lesson Plans
Probability theory began with a question related to a game—and so do the first three of these lessons. What probability means and how it affects outcomes can seem inconsequential to middle school students, but when they see its connection to real decisions in game playing, probability takes on real meaning. In these lessons, games serve to both motivate learning and connect the mathematics to actual experience.
The last of these resources is a set of connected lessons that cover the basic elements of probability for the middle school level. The lessons are designed to be used in a tutoring situation but can be valuable for the classroom as well.
This two-day lesson introduces probability as well as forces used in flight. To guide a helicopter to stranded hikers on a mountaintop, students learn about: lift, drag, thrust, and gravity. Various spinners used in the game differ in the areas allotted to each of these forces. Which spinner should be used on the next turn? Before playing the game, students conduct a probability experiment with the spinners, tallying the results in tables and graphs. For each turn, they select the spinner with the greatest probability of helping them reach the lost hikers. An adventurous introduction to the basics of probability!
A practical use of mathematics is in decision making. Through Skunk, a game not only played but analyzed in the lesson, students consider "choice versus chance" and make decisions accordingly. Students roll dice to accumulate points by throwing several "good" rolls in a row, but they must decide when to stop before a "bad" roll wipes out their points. Probability comes into play as they try to create winning strategies.
Students play a game based on the Apache game "Throw Sticks," which was played at multi-nation celebrations. This is another practical application of the concepts of probability. Students collect data, examine the probable outcome of various moves, and use basic ideas of expected value to decide on game strategy.
Throughout this unit of seven lessons, students use hands-on learning activities to explore statistics and probability. Designed for mentoring situations at middle school level, the lessons focus on the essentials. For example, the probability activities introduce fairness in games and the computation of probability. Lessons include teaching guidelines as well as all handouts. MSP full record
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Copyright
September 2006 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the National Science Foundation.
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