Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Maths Performance Task - Personal Reflection
(1) Roles of Statistics In Real Life
What I understand of the term “Statistics” is a representation of the datas collected and organized accordingly. It is to help us understand and collect information about a certain something.
Statistics broadly cover from the smallest things such as how many people brushes their teeth twice a day, and how many doesn’t and even go up to global things such as the total human population. In other words, it can be widely used and could cover almost everything.
As I recall what I learnt in Chapter 16, there were different types of graphs to represent statistic datas which includes stem-and-leaf diagram, pie chart, bar graph, line chart, as well as pictograms, histograms and frequency tables. One thing is that histograms and frequency tables are linked, as in they share the same component, frequency of an unit.
Oh right, we also did some online activities on dot-diagrams, and of course, jolted down the different graphs and their characteristics.
Though I don’t really record about what I do in a graph, I always see the electricity, gas and water bills delivered to our house. Behind the paper, I can see our house’s overall usage compared to the average household usage. They shared this information with us to make sure that we try to reduce the usage of electricity, gas or/and water.
Statistics also exists in subjects like Science, especially data readings and analysis, to record down the findings for the experiments.
From newspaper articles, statistics are being used to report on news. Below is an example excerpt from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/
Mostly, the datas are being presented in percentage but sometimes uses things like line graph, or bar graphs. Below is also an excerpt from http://www.russiablog.org
Statistics cannot lie. "However they can be used to mislead people or twisted to indicate things that seem good but aren't (this is called spindoctoring) in various ways. Examples include driving accident statistics - 45% of crashes are caused by drunk drivers, but that means 55% were caused by sober drivers - and crime statistics - 5000 murders were committed in one city but only 500 were committed in another; a person might assume the second city is safer, but if the first city had 100 times the population then it is actually only one-tenth, not ten times as dangerous as the second." (extracted from wiki.answers.com)
An simple example of usage of statistics to deceive the people is as below:
It is actually the same graph, but what is different is the magnitude scale on the vertical axis. As the phrase "looks can be deceiving" goes, on the left hand side, it looks like the graphs have very little difference, but on the right hand side, when the magnitude is 'cropped', it looks like there is a significant difference between the 3 lines. The main focus of doing this is the method used to deceive people that (The first 2 bar lines on the right hand side graph) their company's brand is better than their competitor company's brand. The type of graph used to lie or in this case, deceive people into thinking, is called a 'gee-whiz' graph as quoted from http://turf.unl.edu/extpresentationspdf/BairdStats.pdf
(2) Learning experience
1) Describe briefly how your work(group, I suppose?) has worked together on this project?
While I did the design and a few of the sections, the rest of the the group members did the rest.
2) What are some of the strengths of your group?
They can organize the data well.
3) What were your roles?
Basically, I did the poster design and 3-4 other components out of the 8 different sections.
4) What are some challenges that you faced while doing your project?
Some of the consolidated data was inaccurate, had errors as well as not properly done. (e.g the total number of time the bus came during the data collection period did not match the total number of frequencies of different categories [1-2 min late, etc...] And group members were slacking a bit.
5) What are some of the things that you could do differently if you had to do a similar project in future?
Honestly, I couldn't do anything differently in terms of contribution and work as I can't be the only one doing the work. But, for poster, I could make a better design and organize the datas even more properly provided I had more time, as for this performance task, the time is rather limited.
From newspaper articles, statistics are being used to report on news. Below is an example excerpt from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/
Statistics cannot lie. "However they can be used to mislead people or twisted to indicate things that seem good but aren't (this is called spindoctoring) in various ways. Examples include driving accident statistics - 45% of crashes are caused by drunk drivers, but that means 55% were caused by sober drivers - and crime statistics - 5000 murders were committed in one city but only 500 were committed in another; a person might assume the second city is safer, but if the first city had 100 times the population then it is actually only one-tenth, not ten times as dangerous as the second." (extracted from wiki.answers.com)
An simple example of usage of statistics to deceive the people is as below:
It is actually the same graph, but what is different is the magnitude scale on the vertical axis. As the phrase "looks can be deceiving" goes, on the left hand side, it looks like the graphs have very little difference, but on the right hand side, when the magnitude is 'cropped', it looks like there is a significant difference between the 3 lines. The main focus of doing this is the method used to deceive people that (The first 2 bar lines on the right hand side graph) their company's brand is better than their competitor company's brand. The type of graph used to lie or in this case, deceive people into thinking, is called a 'gee-whiz' graph as quoted from http://turf.unl.edu/extpresentationspdf/BairdStats.pdf
(2) Learning experience
1) Describe briefly how your work(group, I suppose?) has worked together on this project?
While I did the design and a few of the sections, the rest of the the group members did the rest.
2) What are some of the strengths of your group?
They can organize the data well.
3) What were your roles?
Basically, I did the poster design and 3-4 other components out of the 8 different sections.
4) What are some challenges that you faced while doing your project?
Some of the consolidated data was inaccurate, had errors as well as not properly done. (e.g the total number of time the bus came during the data collection period did not match the total number of frequencies of different categories [1-2 min late, etc...] And group members were slacking a bit.
5) What are some of the things that you could do differently if you had to do a similar project in future?
Honestly, I couldn't do anything differently in terms of contribution and work as I can't be the only one doing the work. But, for poster, I could make a better design and organize the datas even more properly provided I had more time, as for this performance task, the time is rather limited.
References:
http://www.singstat.gov.sg/
http://www.russiablog.org/SPB2-Manufacturing.gif
http://turf.unl.edu/extpresentationspdf/BairdStats.pdf
http://turf.unl.edu/extpresentationspdf/BairdStats.pdf
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Post Orientation Reflections 2011
1. What were 3 of the highlights of the Orientation and the last 2 weeks?
1) When we were playing games at the Orientation Camp
2) Campfire
3) When we were doing the group cheer.
2. What were 3 of the "low" moments of Orientation and the last 2 weeks
1) Doing the cleaning chores (but rather fun though)
2) Queuing up for the shower
3) Sleeping in the hall, crowded
3. What are 3 of my greatest takeways/lessons from the Orientation and the last 2 weeks?
1) Gain the confidence
2) Leadership
3) Learnt more about myself
4. What did you learn about yourself in the last 2 weeks?
I had the capability to be a leader and also that I had confidence in myself.
5. What are you looking forward in 2011?
I am looking forward to getting used to Secondary School and learn lessons in a fun way. I also hope that things would go smoothly as planned throughout the year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)