Making Sense Of Numbers

Making Sense of Numbers teaches students the skills they need to be both consumers and producers of quantitative research: able to read about, collect, calculate, and communicate numeric information for both everyday tasks and school or work assignments. The text teaches how to avoid making common errors of reasoning, calculation, or interpretation by introducing a systematic approach to working with numbers, showing students how to figure out what a particular number means. The text also demonstrates why it is important to apply a healthy dose of skepticism to the numbers we all encounter, so that we can understand how those numbers can (and cannot) be interpreted in their real-world context. Jane E. Miller uses annotated examples on a wide variety of topics to illustrate how to use new terms, concepts, and approaches to working with numbers. End-of-chapter engagement activities designed based on Miller’s three decades of teaching experience can be used in class or as homework assignments, with some for students to do individually and others intended for group discussion. The book is ideally suited for a range of courses, including quantitative reasoning, research methods, basic statistics, data analysis, and communicating quantitative information. An instructor website for the book includes a test bank, editable PowerPoint slides, and tables and figures from the book.

With his years of study, Dr. Cary Schneider has had lifelong exposure to and proficiency in numbers and math. He presents his practical, down-to-earth approach to think about numbers and math. It is designed as a guide for parents to help their children achieve a solid foundation for understanding numbers and math. The books role is not to replace but to supplement the education their children receive at school. It gives the early preschool child some basic information and perspectives so structured education will be more productive. It may also give teachers a unique perspective that they might incorporate into their numbers and math education. The readers and their children will learn the authors philosophy and principles to improve their perspectives and knowledge and see how numbers and math really do make sense.

This practical book shows you how to get to know the needs and abilities of your students and help them make sense of math concepts. Designed to enhance your professional learning, the book shows you how to notice, interpret, confirm, and respond to student thinking. You will discover how to structure learning experiences around key number concepts — quantity, counting, relating, and representing — developed across various strands: patterning and algebra, numbers and operations, measurement, geometry, and data and probability. Powerful examples of questions and prompts guide you to create a classroom where students get the support they need as they develop confidence in their number sense.

A concise introduction to personal and professional numeracy skills, helping readers to become more mathematically competent.

Statistics is required coursework within most teacher certification programs. Beyond the Numbers presents a nonthreatening, practical approach to statistics, providing step-by-step instructions for understanding and implementing the essential components of the subject.The basic and understandable explanations in Beyond the Numbers break down complex statistical processes to simple arithmetic computations that can be applied with the confidence that accompanies understanding.

This extensive collection of hands-on activities helps students develop their number sense and basic mathematical comprehension. Lessons in place value, statistics, measurement, and estimation all adhere to the NCTM standards for teaching math.

'I couldn't imagine a better guidebook for making sense of a tragic and momentous time in our lives. Covid by Numbers is comprehensive yet concise, impeccably clear and always humane' Tim Harford How many people have died because of COVID-19? Which countries have been hit hardest by the virus? What are the benefits and harms of different vaccines? How does COVID-19 compare to the Spanish flu? How have the lockdown measures affected the economy, mental health and crime? This year we have been bombarded by statistics - seven day rolling averages, rates of infection, excess deaths. Never have numbers been more central to our national conversation, and never has it been more important that we think about them clearly. In the media and in their Observer column, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter and RSS Statistical Ambassador Anthony Masters have interpreted these statistics, offering a vital public service by giving us the tools we need to make sense of the virus for ourselves and holding the government to account. In Covid by Numbers, they crunch the data on a year like no other, exposing the leading misconceptions about the virus and the vaccine, and answering our essential questions. This timely, concise and approachable book offers a rare depth of insight into one of the greatest upheavals in history, and a trustworthy guide to these most uncertain of times.

The amount of data produced, captured and transmitted through the media has never been greater. But for this data to be useful, it needs to be properly understood and claims made about or with data need to be properly scrutinized. Through a series of examples of statistics in the media, this book shows you how to critically assess the presentation of data in the media, to identify what is significant and to sort verifiable conclusions from misleading claims. How accurate are polls, and how should we know? How should league tables be read? Are numbers presented as ‘large’ really as big as they may seem at first glance? By answering these questions and more, readers will learn a number of statistical concepts central to many undergraduate social science statistics courses. By tying them in to real life examples, the importance and relevance of these concepts comes to life. As such, this book does more than teaches techniques needed for a statistics course; it teaches you life skills that we need to use every single day.