Chris Luke, AC for Derby, Northamptonshire and Rutland
The Large Data Set has moved centre stage in the teaching of statistics in A level Mathematics, and the appetite among teachers for professional development opportunities in this area is still strong. Teaching the large data sets has opened up the possibilities of using technology in the classroom, an area in which some teachers lack experience.
With these issues in mind, we held an event looking at technology in statistics in Towcester at the end of March. 21 teachers attended the full-day event in which they used technology such as GeoGebra, Desmos, Excel and calculators to explore the LDS and discuss ideas for teaching statistics for A level Mathematics.
The event was led by Paul Chillingworth from the AMSP’s Central Team and was supported by the Swan Teaching Alliance. The delegates found the day very interesting and useful.
- “The use of GeoGebra was very good and has given me loads of ideas to help the pupils visualise the data and assigned probabilities.”
- “The training of GeoGebra and the calculators was excellent, as I have never been shown this as a new A-level teacher.”
- “The use of spreadsheets/GeoGebra for repeated sampling was most useful.”
- “Everything was useful to me, as I came with little or no experience of the technology to use in teaching.”