S24: “Predict the plot”: honing mental models by predicting how graphs will change

Information

This session will demonstrate a flexible classroom activity called “Predict the Plot”, which helps probe and potentially repair students’ mental models of statistical concepts and their interrelations. In a Predict the Plot activity, students are shown a graph, told that an underlying statistical value will change, and asked to draw what the graph will look like after the change before being shown the final graph (example provided below). The activity serves as formative assessment with immediate feedback and can benefit students whose mental models are correct or incorrect. We will demonstrate the activity as applied to one possible concept: the standard error of the mean. In the activity, students (1) view a histogram of sample means (2) learn that the population standard deviation will double and the histogram will update; (3) draw what they think the updated histogram will look like; (4) explain their reasoning to a neighbor; (5) view the updated plot and explain to their neighbor one way their reasoning was (or wasn't) correct. The activity has several benefits: it encourages reasoning with statistical concepts; it can surface and potentially address incorrect mental models; it promotes metacognitive awareness; it can be applied flexibly to many statistical concepts.