Module 1

Famous People:

When thinking about what names that my peers might have chose as someone famous they would like to have a conversation with I found myself questioning whether they would have a socialite person like I did, an inspirational leader, an artist, a religious figure, or what kind of person they one actually enjoy meeting.  I had a hard time myself coming up with the exact person that I would like to meet but when thinking through all the people who are inspirational to me I found Oprah to be the ideal person for me to choose.  I found myself wondering before I reviewed all of the names offered by my peers if I would see a name in the selection that would ultimately make me change my mind on my choice.  I found myself wondering how many of the same names I would find, wanting to know how many people chose someone alive, and how many people were going to choose people in which I had never heard of.  Seeing names that I had not heard before was actually a big concern of mine before I reviewed the names because I felt like it would make me feel less educated in comparison to my classmates.  The idea of going through all of the names was one that frightened me yet excited me just to see who my classmates would enjoy spending time with as well as reviewing their blogs to see the reasons that they chose certain people.

I had a hard time deciding where to put certain people but I decided on the way they are listed below.  I chose to sort my names into three groups being: Entertainment icons, historical icons, and religious/spiritual icons.  This was a quite difficult choice of groupings because I feel as if it is one that a majority of the classmates are going to choose.

Entertainment Icons:

·         Adam Sandler

·         Barbara Walters

·         C.S Lewis

·         Dr. Seuss

·         Ellen DeGeneres

·         Jennifer Aniston

·         Julianne Hough

·         Kelly Clarkson

·         Kenny Chesney

·         Morgan Freeman

·         Oprah Winfrey

·         Shane Smith

·         The Little Mermaid

·         Walt Disney

Historical Icons:

·         Anne Frank

·         Cesar Chavez

·         Dr. Martin Luther King

·         Hitler

·         Leonardo da Vinci

·         Rosa Parks

 

 

Religious/Spiritual Icons:

·         God

·         Haregewoin Teferra

·         Jesus

·         Laozi

·         Mother Teresa

·         Siddhartha Gautama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After sorting the data it was clear to me that the majority of the people chose to meet someone that was from the entertaining field.  The results when sorted show me that my peers have all different ideals of people they want to meet because there were only about three names that were repeated during this collection of data.  I found myself realizing that due to the results we must have some people who are rather spiritual people wanting to meet such people as God, Mother Teresa, and the others listed.  I understand that in the group of Religious/Spiritual icons that not all of the people were a religious figure being why I called it spiritual as well.  I also listed Haregewoin Teferra in this group instead of the historical icon because I felt as if she was a spiritual woman to do the things that she did and I find her more as a spiritual person in my mind than a historical icon. When looking at the historical names that were chosen I feel like a lot of the names chosen of people to speak with had to deal with how it would be interesting to know what it was like for them during their era and what kind of things they had to endure.  I feel like Hitler was put in this category as someone to speak to not as someone to adore but as to someone to find out “what in the world he was thinking” and to find out if he had any remorse for his actions.  I feel like the people who chose the entertainment icons for the simple reason of they liked to be entertained.  They like to read, laugh, sing, listen, etc. 

 

 

Further Questions I would ask when doing this data collections would be:

·         If I had given my peers the a more direct question and had them to pick one person they would like to have a conversation with in the entertainment industry would I have more of the same answers?

·         If I had given my peers a list of famous historical icons would more people choose positive influences or negative influences in history?

·         If I had given my peers a list of famous people that was half male and half female would I have more males or females chosen? Why?

 

In order to get at my own questions during the survey I could first start off my doing as we did as a class and ask for any famous person they would want to have a conversation with.  After I collected all of the answers and sorted them then I could have my peers to select a person from the list that their peers have chosen as their favorite person in the entertainment industry.  Doing a study like this would probably answer yes on my question as to if I would have more of the same answers.  To get to question two I could have a list of the historical icons that my peers chose and have them to each select the person they would want to have a conversation with.  If the majority chose Hitler I would know that the majority would choose to talk to a negative historical influence which in my opinion would to just pick his brain to see what he was thinking.  That is a conversation I think I would actually like to have as well.  To get to my last question I would again pass out a list of the famous people half male and half female and have them to pick their favorite.  Whatever the majority came up to be I would then go through and ask people from the majority sex their reasoning behind choosing that person.  I feel like this would give a good answer to the question why?  We would know if it was something to do with sex or if it was just by coincidence. 

 

During the sorting I used all data but on one certain one as I mentioned earlier Haregewoin Teferra is listed under religious/spiritual which some may disagree with and believe she should be under historical but I felt like she was a spiritual influence when reading about her.  I also had a problem putting Hitler down as a “historical icon” although he is, I feel like he is one of the most disgusting individuals and should not even be allowed to be in such a distinguished category with such people as Dr. Martin Luther King and Anne Frank

 

 

 

 

How Many Pockets? Video:

 

Something I noticed as being very important in this video is how involved the teacher was with her students and although they were hyperactive she still had good control over them.  Another thing I noticed was the method she used with her students in having them to raise their thumbs instead of their hands.  I found this to be in important learning experience for myself because it seemed like less of a distraction because instead of hands in the other student’s faces they were able to get the teachers attention without being all over the other students and distracting them.  Another thing that stood out to me a lot was how she actually got on the floor and interacted with the students instead of sitting in a chair looking down on them.  This is something I have always liked when teachers did because it seems less intimidating to the students.  I enjoyed in the video when the student Matthew was trying to figure out how many kids had five pockets and kept getting confused she did not pressure him to give her an answer.  I also enjoyed when asked “how do you know” and he responded “I’m not sure” she did not belittle him and force him to answer but instead said “ok” and moved on to allow someone else to try to answer the question.  I liked how the teacher allowed the student’s time to figure out problems on their own without digging into them to get an answer and allowing other students to build off of what had been said.  I have seen in the classroom too many times where the teacher pries into the students mind and makes them shy away from answering anymore questions.  In this video you see the teacher allow students build off of what one another were saying in order to gather one large concept among all of them.  I think this teacher did an excellent job at keeping control of her classroom and by helping them to build a higher concept of thinking off of one another.  I believe the idea the students are working on is of course collecting data and sorting by keeping the graph on the board but it is also a lesson of building a larger concept.  The idea of building a larger concept seems to be addressed during this lesson by having the students to build off of one another’s ideas. 

 

 

Statistics as Problem Solving

When hearing the word statistics after taking a statistics class sophomore year I think of a group of numbers used to collect a mass amount of data of a group of people.  In my statistics class we learned about how to collect data, how to analyze it, and how to come up with a figure that would give you an idea about a group as whole. A statistical question that could be asked would be how many people buy steak at the grocery store during Labor Day weekend?  While being in the grocery store at the beach this weekend I noticed that approximately 6 out of every 10 people at the meat section were buying steaks.  That being said that would be 60% of the people at the grocery store buy steaks during Labor Day weekend.  I understand after this module and after taking a statistics class that this number is not an exact figure but it gives an idea of the question you had.  Using the four components of the statistical process I would 1. Start by asking my question: how many people buy steak at the grocery store Labor Day weekend? One would have to be at a grocery store during Labor Day weekend and keep a tally or some sort of count to collect data which would be step 2 of collecting appropriate data.  I would then have to use step 3 which is to analyze the data by looking over the numbers collected and the using step 4 of interpreting the results by looking at the numbers and coming up with a total figure of how many people actually buy steak labor day weekend.  In finishing this module and watching the videos I understand how statistics can be used every day and how it fits into our life to give us an idea of how to collect data and then use it to solve a question.