Grade Levels: 6-8

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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Mean, Median, Mode, and Range, and supports the standard of understanding that a set of data collected to answer a statistical question has a distribution which can be described by its center, spread, and overall shape. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Have students share how many minutes they take to get ready for school each day and record their data on the board. Ask:

  • How might we describe this data? 

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Mean, Median, Mode, and Range topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “Theory” or “Sports” Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign Mean, Median, Mode, and Range Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about mean, median, mode, and range while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a newscast that reports the amount of time your class spends getting ready for school each morning that includes the mean, media, mode, and range of the data collected during step one of the lesson. 
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying the mean, median, mode, and range of the class’s data on the time it takes to get ready each morning that was collected during step one of the lesson. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a newscast where the headline identifies the mean, median, mode, and range of your class’s data on how long it takes to get ready each morning that was collected during step one of the lesson. 

More to Explore 

Sortify: Mean, Median, Mode, and Range: ​​Challenge players to sort data sets by their mean, median, mode, and range. 

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments