Aritz Cardenas

Math Concept: Random Sampling

Grade 7
CCSS.Math.Content.7.SP.A.1 Understand that statistics can be used to gain information about a
population by examining a sample of the population; generalizations about a population from a
sample are valid only if the sample is representative of that population. Understand that random
sampling tends to produce representative samples and support valid inferences.
Big Ideas: Random Sampling allows us to draw inferences
about a population.

Open Question: I want to know what types of foods Sierra Middle School students
want to be served for lunch. What methods would I use to determine what foods
Sierra student want to eat for lunch?
Expected Student Responses
o You can ask every student at school
o Take a class vote
o Do a list of answers during lunch, afterschool
o Ask a group of some friends what they think
o Find a group of students from every class and ask them.

Management
Students are working in pairs and are encouraged to list as many
methods as possible to find out what types of food students want.
Teacher Questions to Probe Thinking after a couple minutes: (1)What
methods would I use if I did not want to ask every student in the
school? Only a small percentage of students. (2) Can we ask students
randomly?

Academic Language Check: Guide students in changing their informal language or
playground words into academic language or scholar words. Discussion as a
whole class; then groups highlight phrases they used and write new words next to
the original ones. Chart the language on poster or word wall as shown below.
Do a = create
ask = Survey
take or find= poll (polling)
group = population
some = sample


Debrief: Have students share pair ideas to the whole class as teacher charts.
Teacher will direct students to address original statement questions that were
asked of them and other probing questions. Teacher will remind them to use their
new scholar words. The following speaking frames will be provided:
Lesson Goal #1: To activate student knowledge about Random
Sampling.
*A method of determining what types of foods Sierra students want to eat at
lunch would be ___________________________________________________.
*A method of asking a _____________________ of Sierra students (without
surveying every student), would be to ______________________________.
*In order to make the survey random, we can __________________________
___________________________________________________________________.


Direct instruction
Teacher will have students briefly write some quick notes (in their notebook) going
over three different types of population samples that are surveyed:
1. Convenience Sampling
2. Voluntary Sampling
3. Random Sampling

Teacher will go over basic definitions of the terms and give an example of each.

Summarize what we have learned:
Provide students with the following two paragraph frame on a sheet of paper that
goes over each of the three types of samplings. Students will give an example for
each type of sampling and give an opinion as to which type of sampling will most
likely provide the most accurate (fair) results.

Each student completes the frame on the worksheet. They each need to do one, but
they can continue to discuss with their group. Remind them to use their scholar
words. Have students read their paragraph to a partner.

There are three types of survey samplings that were discussed in class. One
method is _______________________. An example of a _____________________ sampling is
___________________________________________________. Another method is
______________________________________. An example of a _____________________ sampling is
___________________________________________. The third method we discussed in class was
_______________________________. An example of this type of sampling would be to
_________________________________________.

I believe that the fairest sampling method of surveying a population would be
_________ _____________________________________________. I think this method is the most
reasonable because _______________________________________________. I think the other two
methods are not as reasonable because __________________________________________.


Formative Assessment (Exit Ticket, Ticket Out the Door, Show What You
Know): Students will write an Exit ticket answering following question: which
survey sampling method did you consider the fairest to determine what types of
foods Sierra students would want have for lunch? Why?

Parallel Tasks: Students choose which task they prefer.

1. Read the statement and answer the questions that follows: After surveying 45 female
students in four 7
th
grade homeroom classes, 70% of the students responded that pizza should be served once
a week. As a result of the survey, the school started to serve pizza once a week. What are some potential
problems or concerns with this survey? Was the school response fair? Why or why not?
2. Create a sampling in which you will survey students at Sierra to determine
what types of foods they would want to eat for lunch. Make sure you describe
how you would make your survey fair.


Academic Language Check: Reviewing task completion. Have we used our scholar
words? Did we write in complete sentences? Students self-edit.

Debrief: Teacher will lead a class discussion going over each of the two tasks.
Teacher will focus on the concepts of fairness and validity. Teacher will review
terms from previous lesson (population, sampling, survey). Teacher will transition
from discussion to direct instruction with the term bias.

Direct Vocabulary Instruction: Using Marzanos vocabulary guide, students will
develop understanding of the meaning of bias.

1. Write the word.
2. Rate your understanding of the word (1-4).
3. Talk with a partner and make predictions.
4. Teach guides in developing a definition and examples.
5. Students write a sentence using the word and draw a picture.

Summarize what we have learned: Complete a paragraph on the following
scenario. Using the vocabulary words that you have learned in this lesson, describe
the fairness of this survey.

Mary-Ann surveyed 52 students in the girls locker room. She asked the students
whether they believe girls should be allowed to go to lunch two minutes early, while
boys will go out at the regular time. 80% of the students Mary-Ann polled believe that
girls should be allowed to go out early for lunch.

I think Mary- Anns sampling of students to have girls allowed to go to lunch early is
a/an___________________________ survey. This sampling is _______________________________
because ___________________________________________________________________. Another reason
it is ____________________________________________________________________________________. If
Mary-Ann instead _________________________________________________, then the survey
___________________________________________________.
Formative Assessment: What could Mary-Ann do to make sure her survey was
unbiased?

Lesson Goal #2: That random sampling increases the likelihood of
obtaining a representative sample from a population.