1.

Describe a real world scenario for the activity.
For Example, the following is a real world scenario for the activity "How Far Are You Away From Home?"
     The Admission Office of this university is considering revising the policy of recruiting
     students.  As a first step in this process, the university wishes to find out how far
     and where students are coming from and their reasons for choosing this university. 
     You are assigned this project to assist the university in collecting data, analyzing it,
     and making a report of your findings.

2.

Engage students in the data measurement and data collection stage.

     • Stay focused
     • Open up discussion and provide students an opportunity to challenge each other
     • Lead the discussion towards the measurement used in the online activity

For example, the following interaction may be a good starting point to engage students in the activity "Is palm size a good prediction of height?"

• Point to a student and ask him/her to describe how he/she would measure palm size.  Then engage other students to challenge it and to suggest different ways.

• It is a good idea to give some cases where the mistake in measurement can have a serious consequence.  An example is the problem of changing measurement units from centimeters to inches in the space rover that was sent to Mars in 2001 that led to a loss of over one billion dollars.

• It is a good idea to engage students to propose different measurements and to discuss the pros and cons of each measurement.  However, it is important to keep in mind the discussion should lead to the measurement used in the online survey.  Students can still challenge the measurement used in the online survey.  However, consistency is required and that is a good place to point out that it is never perfect in real world situations and some reasonable compromise is usually necessary due to time and cost.

• It is important to point out the importance of context knowledge, whenever it is appropriate.

3.

Choose to participate in the activity or use the data collected by other classes.

• Have the activity pass code ready.

• Stress the fact that each student is only allowed to enter the data once.

If you want to use the data collected by other classes, you may go to step 4.  Otherwise, direct students to the Data Entry page for conducting the online survey. 

• To participate in an activity, your class needs a common pass code for each activity.  Before allowing students to enter the online survey, you should have the "Activity Code."  If not, please refer to the Registration page, for registration.

• Provide the Activity Code to  your class and have students enter the data.  Please stress that each student can only enter the data once.  The number of records for your class is limited by the class size you provided in the Registration page. Therefore, ask them to double check their data before submission.

4.

Direct students to the Data Download page.

• Direct students to follow your instructions to download the data.  As described on the Data Download page, you have different choices for selecting the data.  Please be specific so that your class will obtain the same data set. 

• Instead of having each student download his/her own data for the class activity, one good alternative is to select the data yourself and store it in your local server.  Then, have students access your selected data set for in-class activities. 

5.

Direct students to analyze the data.

     • Demonstrate how to use the software, when it is needed, and how to analyze the
       data.

You should have chosen the statistical tool your class will be using for analyzing data.
     • You may use the software available at your local computer lab.
     • You may use the online software, "Crunch_It", at  http://statcrunch.com.  For first
       time users, you need to direct students to sign on to the site.  Please stress that
       students need to remember their own ID and password.  Direct students to input
       the data and analyze the data.  Be more specific on what tools are to be used for
       analyzing the data, based on the purpose of the activity.
     • A team of two students working together is an effective approach to analyze the
       data.
     • For each activity, there will be a list of suggested questions for in-class and out 
       of class activities.  You are welcome to design your own problem sets.  It would 
       be greatly appreciated if you shared your problem set with other users by
       submitting them online using the Suggestion page.
 

6.

Facilitate the discussion of the results.

• Use a group approach.

• Be open, but stay focused.

• Summarize the final findings.

• Facilitating the discussion of the results should focus on the  related context.

• It is a good idea to ask students to develop their own problem of interest and ask them to analyze it as homework projects.

• It is also a good idea to stress the importance of interpreting the results based on the context.

• Group work is an effective approach for analyzing the findings. Individual students are more reluctant to express their interpretations and observations.

7.

Assessment.

• It is critical to assess students' skills and conceptual knowledge related to a given activity.  A set of online assessment questions is provided in each activity page.  They can be used as exercises only.

• There is a set of suggested questions that can be assigned as homework or projects. 

• Some project competition may be organized within or between   institutions if the data is large enough.

CMU, an AA/EO institution, strongly and actively 
strives to increase diversity within its community (see www.cmich.edu/aaeo/).