Teaching Guide

for Grade 11 Second Semester

Statistics and Probability
by
Jose Ramon Albert, Ph.D.
Zita V. J. Albacea, Ph.D.
Isidoro P. David, Ph.D.
Ana Maria L. Tabunda, Ph.D.
Imelda de Mesa
Mark John V. Ayaay

PREFACE
Prior to the implementation of K-12, Statistics was taught in public high schools in
the Philippines typically in the last quarter of third year. In private schools, Statistics
was taught as either an elective, or a required but separate subject outside of
regular Math classes. In college, Statistics was taught practically to everyone either
as a three unit or six unit course. All college students had to take at least three to
six units of a Math course, and would typically endure a Statistics course to
graduate. Teachers who taught these Statistics classes, whether in high school or in
college, would typically be Math teachers, who may not necessarily have had formal
training in Statistics. They were selected out of the understanding (or
misunderstanding) that Statistics is Math. Statistics does depend on and uses a lot
of Math, but so do many disciplines, e.g. engineering, physics, accounting,
chemistry, computer science. But Statistics is not Math, not even a branch of Math.
Hardly would one think that accounting is a branch of mathematics simply because
it does a lot of calculations. An accountant would also not describe himself as a
mathematician.
Math largely involves a deterministic way of thinking and the way Math is taught in
schools leads learners into a deterministic way of examining the world around them.
Statistics, on the other hand, is by and large dealing with uncertainty. Statistics uses
inductive thinking (from specifics to generalities), while Math uses deduction (from
the general to the specific).
Statistics has its own tools and ways of thinking, and statisticians are quite
insistent that those of us who teach mathematics realize that statistics is not
mathematics, nor is it even a branch of mathematics. In fact, statistics is a
separate discipline with its own unique ways of thinking and its own tools for
approaching problems. - J. Michael Shaughnessy, Research on Students
Understanding of Some Big Concepts in Statistics (2006)
Statistics deals with data; its importance has been recognized by governments, by
the private sector, and across disciplines because of the need for evidence-based
decision making. It has become even more important in the past few years, now
that more and more data is being collected, stored, analyzed and re-analyzed. From
the time when humanity first walked the face of the earth until 2003, we created as
much as 5 exabytes of data (1 exabyte being a billion gigabytes). Information
communications technology (ICT) tools have provided us the means to transmit and
exchange data much faster, whether these data are in the form of sound, text,
visual images, signals or any other form or any combination of those forms using
desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and other gadgets with the use of the
internet, social media (facebook, twitter). With the data deluge arising from using
ICT tools, as of 2012, as much as 5 exabytes were being created every two days
(the amount of data created from the beginning of history up to 2003); a year later,
this same amount of data was now being created every ten minutes.

In order to make sense of data, which is typically having variation and uncertainty,
we need the Science of Statistics, to enable us to summarize data for describing or
explaining phenomenon; or to make predictions (assuming trends in the data
continue). Statistics is the science that studies data, and what we can do with data.
Teachers of Statistics and Probability can easily spend much time on the formal
methods and computations, losing sight of the real applications, and taking the
excitement out of things. The eminent statistician Bradley Efron mentioned how
diverse statistical applications are:
During the 20th Century statistical thinking and methodology has become
the scientific framework for literally dozens of fields including education,
agriculture, economics, biology, and medicine, and with increasing influence
recently on the hard sciences such as astronomy, geology, and physics. In
other words, we have grown from a small obscure field into a big obscure
field.
In consequence, the work of a statistician has become even fashionable. Googles
chief economist Hal Varian wrote in 2009 that the sexy job in the next ten years
will be statisticians. He went on and mentioned that The ability to take data - to
be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to
communicate it's going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only
at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school
kids, for high school kids, for college kids.
This teaching guide, prepared by a team of professional statisticians and educators,
aims to assist Senior High School teachers of the Grade 11 second semester course
in Statistics and Probability so that they can help Senior High School students
discover the fun in describing data, and in exploring the stories behind the data.
The K-12 curriculum provides for concepts in Statistics and Probability to be taught
from Grade 1 up to Grade 8, and in Grade 10, but the depth at which learners
absorb these concepts may need reinforcement. Thus, the first chapter of this
guide discusses basic tools (such as summary measures and graphs) for describing
data. While Probability may have been discussed prior to Grade 11, it is also
discussed in Chapter 2, as a prelude to defining Random Variables and their
Distributions. The next chapter discusses Sampling and Sampling Distributions,
which bridges Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics. The latter is started in
Chapter 4, in Estimation, and further discussed in Chapter 5 (which deals with Tests
of Hypothesis). The final chapter discusses Regression and Correlation.
Although Statistics and Probability may be tangential to the primary training of
many if not all Senior High School teachers of Statistics and Probability, it will be of
benefit for them to see why this course is important to teach. After all, if the
teachers themselves do not find meaning in the course, neither will the students.
Work developing this set of teaching materials has been supported by the
Commission on Higher Education under a Materials Development Sub-project of the

K-12 Transition Project. These materials will also be shared with Department of
Education.
Writers of this teaching guide recognize that few Senior High School teachers would
have formal training or applied experience with statistical concepts. Thus, the guide
gives concrete suggestions on classroom activities that can illustrate the wide range
of processes behind data collection and data analysis.
It would be ideal to use technology (i.e. computers) as a means to help teachers
and students with computations; hence, the guide also provides suggestions in case
the class may have access to a computer room (particularly the use of spreadsheet
applications like Microsoft Excel). It would be unproductive for teachers and
students to spend too much time working on formulas, and checking computation
errors at the expense of gaining knowledge and insights about the concepts behind
the formulas.
The guide gives a mixture of lectures and activities, (the latter include actual
collection and analysis of data). It tries to follow suggestions of the Guidelines for
Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) Project of the American
Statistical Association to go beyond lecture methods, and instead exercise
conceptual learning, use active learning strategies and focus on real data. The guide
suggests what material is optional as there is really a lot of material that could be
taught, but too little time. Teachers will have to find a way of recognizing that
diverse needs of students with variable abilities and interests.
This teaching guide for Statistics and Probability, to be made available both digitally
and in print to senior high school teachers, shall provide Senior High School
teachers of Statistics and Probability with much-needed support as the countrys
basic education system transitions into the K-12 curriculum. It is earnestly hoped
that Senior High School teachers of Grade 11 Statistics and Probability can direct
students into examining the context of data, identifying the consequences and
implications of stories behind Statistics and Probability, thus becoming critical
consumers of information. It is further hoped that the competencies gained by
students in this course will help them become more statistical literate, and more
prepared for whatever employment choices (and higher education specializations)
given that employers are recognizing the importance of having their employee
know skills on data management and analysis in this very data-centric world.