The Meaning of the Mean

The Practice Finding Means pages in the Student Activity Book provide targeted practice for the following Expectation:

E6.

Find the mean of a data set using manipulatives and numerical procedures.

Students can complete these problems individually, with partners, or for homework. They will need to have connecting cubes or square-inch tiles and calculators available. If students solve the problems at home, they can use pennies or blocks instead of connecting cubes.

The problems span a range of progress levels as shown in Figures 3 and 4. Work with students to decide which problems they should complete based on information from the assessments in Lessons 2 and 3. Each student should solve at least one problem in each row of the Practice Menu in Figure 4. It is equally important for students to be able to show their conceptual understanding by finding means using manipulatives in the problems listed in the first row and for students to be able to find means using numerical procedures as in the problems in the second row.