Students' intuition and doing mathematics. An example in probability


Book: 
Papers in Statistical Education Presented at ICME-9
Authors: 
Canal, G.
Editors: 
Starkings, S.
Category: 
Year: 
2000
Publisher: 
ICME-9, Tokyo, Japan
URL: 
see Papers on Statistical Education from ICME-9 item #2834
Abstract: 

If it is accepted that the concepts of probability are complicated, it should be also accepted that they are very near to the daily life of common people. Anyway, everybody has to face a variety of situations of uncertainty that can cause either anxiety or joy. As the idea is to teach these concepts to the students, the best way to do it is to have fun when carrying it out. This paper reports the experience with a group of students who are preparing to become high school teachers, in the world of probability by talking about soccer. With this sport as a reference a question is posed such that when students are asked about it, it not only allows an interesting probabilistic analysis, but also takes them, when solving it, to other mathematics concepts like limits and derivatives. The whole situation is presented: its position as conjecture, attempts of answering that include computer work and graphics up to its formal proof.

The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education

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