UNIT1 - WEEK 2
Working with Data Electronically
SummaryIn week 2, we introduce the idea of manipulating and working with large amounts of data and some of the tools that are widely used to manage this process. Students will be introduced to the idea of spreadsheets (MS Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers) and to the specific GeoGebra Spreadsheet tool we will be using. Electronic spreadsheet software is extremely deep and so showing students the research skills to learn on their own is a large part of the process.
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Week 2 - Lesson 1 |
Topic of the Day/Driving Question:
How can we make sense of data electronically? Is there a universally used tool that can assist us? Good Questions:
In class activity/Teacher’s Notes: Let students know that you have a breakdown of the NBA all time stats leaders in electronic form (This can be obtained from nba.com). Share the spreadsheet with the students and ask them to play around with the functionality of the spreadsheet and if the can figure out how to navigate and manipulate the data. It is expected that some students will accidentally delete information from their sheet, or not know how to navigate the new interface, but this is a part of the learning process. Inevitably some students will figure out filters and that they can sort the data depending on their needs. Some guiding questions to use while you are circulating:
Teacher Resources: Khan Academy YouTube |
Week 2 - Lesson 2 |
Topic of the Day/Driving Question:
A detailed look at terminology of a spreadsheet, basic manipulation of data, cells, columns and rows, and an introduction to formulas. Good Questions:
In class activity/Teacher’s Notes: Before starting this lesson, it will be useful to create a spreadsheet from scratch with aspects that you want students to know. For example, create a simple formula using the sum function or multiplication to illustrate how it works. Have students open up Geogebra (Other substitutes such as MS Excel or Numbers will also work - if you prefer all students to be on the same platform, you can use Google Sheets) and save the file with the name of their choice. There are many tutorials available online and through YouTube but we want to introduce students to the following terminology:
Now that you have introduced the basic terminology of a spreadsheet and students had a chance to spend some time with a working document yesterday, ask students to explore the resources available to them and determine how to:
As the functionality of Excel is generally covered in a full university level course, it is the educator's responsibility to determine which functions are most useful to them and steer classroom discussion and driving questions accordingly. Teacher Resources: Khan Academy YouTube |