Statistics is a great class with many different challenging projects, class work, and quizzes. But not only are they challenging they also are fun to do because it is more of a real-life application than in any other math class I have taken at SLA. My purpose for this post to tell you why my favorite benchmarks of the year was from the first quarter. This benchmark was fun because we had to go to our local supermarket and find the price of certain food items and compare against the people of our group who were assigned a different location. With this benchmark, we were put to the challenge of finding the:

•         Z-score
•         Mean
•         Median
•         Mode
•         Range

Also, this was my favorite because I got the opportunity to see how much money I was either saving or wasting by shopping at said supermarket. As a group doing this, we were able to see how the different supermarkets price the same item and compare it, and we also looked to see if the “generic” brand had any comparison to the regular brand.

In addition to that, my second favorite benchmark from this class was the most recent one that we were faced with doing. This benchmark I am talking about, required us to make ourselves a mini-study guide for our college math course that we are going to take in the fall. This study guide had to touch on all topics that we touched throughout the year. However, this was hard to do because I had to go back in my now sloppy notebook to figure out what we had done this year.

I would my favorite Benchmark was the 3rd quarters. It was a chance to do something a lot more interesting then normally present in math. I really enjoyed applying the statistical concepts we had learned into video format. I normaly find any math topic to be dreadfully boring but in this particular case I think I shined. The concepts of probability and chance were represented through a game of black jack shown in our video. The chance of getting 21 with various cards was shown . Several varying "trees"of black jack were also shown. These trees branched off showing various outcomes and probability of getting 21.

My favorite benchmark of the entire year was the first quarter benchmark where we had to go to the supermarkets. It was a group benchmark, and typically I don’t like group projects, however this one I made an exception for. I had three other group members who had the same ambitions as myself work ethic as I do. I had Ashley who was the organized and determined one, Evan who got his work done, and Marchella who understood the work, but had to push herself to actually do it.

Another reason why this was my favorite was because it was given to us back when everything was so easy and staright to the point. We had the basic: mean, media, mode, and range, Along with the quartiles, z-scores, and graphs like bar graphs and histograms. With the easy unit there was no wonder why I was able to so well on this benchmark. Thinking back now of course there are many things I would change. I hate that now I think about it because there is nothing I can do about now, but the opportunity may come up again if  I have something similar to this. Firstly I would chose a completely different supermarket with completely different items. The prices that I had before were either too close or the same price, and that didn’t give me much data to work with, challenging data anyway. Thinking back on it shows my reflection, wanting to change my store and items is my presentation, my group was my collaboration,  and the assignment was my inquiry and research. Oh look SLA’s core values.

            What I wound up choosing was community service hours. So I looked up for all fifty states how much people who didn’t wish to volunteer got paid per hour. Then I compared that to the population, minimum wage, per capita income, and if they officially spoke English or not. I found this not only to be doing as my project but also being able to look up this information and work with it. Then the other fun part of it was having to write the speech in which “if chosen” you would recite to President Obama. So yea definitely the funniest project and the project that was coolest and most open that we got to do.

Core Values:
Inquiry- I asked what was something that I find interesting and that would be useful to use in the project. Also if i would be able to apply the things that we had learned in class to help me with my data once collected and that would let me accomplish all that was required. 

Research- I had to find all the data. The amount which people got paid, 

population, minimum wage, per capita income, and if they officially spoke English or not all per state. 

Collaboration- I asked some classmates for help with calculations and Mrs. Thompson for help with where to find the data and doing the math.

Presentation-  I put it all in excel and then made a keep note to present to her and show all of my work and research. 

Reflection- We had to talk with Mrs. Thompson about the work we did. Then from that we had to explain our process and present to her our work in the method we chose. Also had to discuss any question she may had have about our approaches or what we learned or became more skilled in with this project. 

If I were to choice one of the four benchmark we did is stats the one that I would probably have to choose is the one we just did. This Benchmark showed all the different parts of the different things in statistics. I took a lot of time for me to make. It took like 16 hours to make the 42-slide presentation and another hour and a half for the entire math. Overall though I felt really proud of the final project. I struggled on the regression lines. I completely forgot what a regression line was but after 30 minutes of researching and some questions I made a nice detailed description of what a regression line was, explaining each step and what each equation is used for. The other part I liked was the Chi-Squared problem. I showed how to do it completely step by step, explaining what degrees of freedom were and how to decide which degree you should look under. To use SLA core values, I had other students look at my presentation to see what they learned or even while they were doing their presentation I showed them my presentation to teach them how to do each things. I taught Emma how to do regression lines with my presentation. I researched how to do different topics that I could not remember how to do, and also to see which math course I would take in CCP. This project just showed what I know in statistics, and even though I do not always do my Homework I do actually know how to do all the work which made me very proud to get an 89 on this benchmark.

 

This year in statistics we have learned a nice amount of concepts that could probably help us out later on in life. We took notes, quizzes, and even had to present quarterly projects known as benchmarks to help reflect what knowledge we gained while learning these concepts. Some of the benchmarks we had to do were time consuming, tedious, and just made you frustrated, but in the end we better understood the purpose and meaning of what we were learning. 
The benchmark I most enjoyed doing and completing was the 4th quarter benchmark. For this benchmark we had to create a study guide of all of the concepts we learned and if we wanted to some of the math that we would be taking up while in college. We had to make the study as if we were letting like ourselves use it to help understand what we learned or what we were going to learn while studying in college. 
For this benchmark like every other benchmark or project at SLA we had to apply the five cores values with our project which are: Inquiry, Collaboration, Presentation, Reflection, and Research. Most people would think that is a lot to put into a project, but when you do the type of work we do and you do it well it comes pretty easy. 
This is how I applied each of the core values to my project,
Inquiry- I asked myself what helps me learn and understand the concepts given to me in class? How many visualizations should I put in? How much detail should I add for each concept. So basically I asked myself what is it that I would like to see in a study guide that would help me with learning something I didn't understand.

Research- We had to find out what kinds of math classes we had to take during our first year in college. If we never heard or took that type of math before we had to research exactly what is was, and what we could learn from it.

Collaboration- This might not seem much as collaboration but I think it was in a way. For me I asked some people did they understand what I was trying to say especially if I wasn't sure myself. Ask people to kind of peer edit my work for any mistakes.

Presentation-  I put it all together on a keynote, which is like a power point but better when it comes to design. And for the background I made it look like a notebook to give it a school, learning type feel. I tried to make it something like a workbook a child would get while they were in the 4th grade. Something simple.

Reflection- We had to talk with my teacher Ms. Thompson about the work we did. I told her what I did and did not do well. How much effort I put into doing this project. What I liked most and didn't like most about it. So we basically graded ourselves on the project, which was cool.
It was a fun project to do, and I enjoyed doing although I thought nine topics was a bit much but I still got it done.