So, it's no secret among my students that I really dislike math. But, I do really like JellyBellys, and if I can find away to marry the two, maybe this talk on polls won't be all that bad. To start our time in the land of Poles, I mean polls, I have the kids do some background work. I ask the kids to check out the Roper Center for background on polling. There are two sections that cover polling called (coincedentally) Polling 101 and Polling 201. The students stroll through the overview, and then answer the following questions preceding our class discussion. 1. After reading the page on sampling, take a minute to consider the different types of sample sets. Does a randomly sampled poll have more legitimacy than a straw poll? In order to answer this question, read the following blog post about the Iowa (Ames) straw poll. 2. What does the margin of error tell us about a poll? 3. Give me an example of a question that is NOT GOOD. Why is it not good? Then, the magic begins. The students walk through the door and are greeted by 12 sweet little jelly bellys sitting on their desks. They are given ten minutes to sort them into piles by prevailing color, and then enter their information into a GoogleDocs form. My kids use the following link if you want to check it out: http://tinyurl.com/jellybellypoll We then look at our results as the kids eat their jelly bellys. We point out some shortcomings with the poll, things that have skewed our results...
All of these flaws are built into the activity, and bring about great suggestions from the kids. Once we wrap up, it's off to video land to do a little light TV watching. It's then lecture time, and the kids get a survey of all things polls. After we round that out, we watch another short video segment from the Daily Show (which I have to censor from 0:37 - 0:55, and then end at around 3:30) to hammer home the sentiment that polls vary so wildly, they seem rather irrelevant at times. Kids then get to read three resources, and talk in small groups about the relevance of these resources. The Presidential Election Center resource is an interactive listing of poll results... I highlight the election of 2008 to examine whether or not polls are reflecting public opinion or creating public opinion. · US Presidential Election Center · The Case Against Polls · Rasmussen Polls o How do journalists use polls today? o Have journalists and pollsters improved reliability since the poorly called election of Truman v Dewey in 1948? Why or why not? o How do polls influence election outcomes? o What is the most important issue for you to remember as a voter when thinking about polls? One final note: This interview with Nate Silver and additional snippet gives us teachers a lot of great talking points.
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
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nerdcation
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nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
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nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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