This paper is from Session 6F: Teachers’ awareness of conceptual connections between probability and statistics

which comes under Topic 6: Innovation and reform in teaching probability within statistics

Teachers and students: from an intuitive approach to a rational evaluation of probability

Presenter

• Maria Pia Perelli D’Argenzio (Trieste University, Italy)

Co-author

• Silio Rigatti-Luchini (Padua University, Italy)

Abstract

The paper describes a research conducted in Italian schools and connected to the m@t.abel project for the improvement of teaching and learning mathematics. A group of selected teachers produced 56 didactic units on mathematical subjects. Other teachers involved in the experimentation, received a short in-person presentation and then worked with the units in a virtual environment available on line under the supervision of a tutor. The in-class experimentation was on 4 units and at least one had to be a statistical one. Teachers had to write a log book for each unit including a report with the reasons for their unit choice, a close-ended questionnaire on the experimentation and a final report with the results. By analyzing the context of the unit “Stem and leaf plots“, one of those implemented in the classroom, we observed the teachers and students transition from a purely intuitive probability approach to a rational estimate.