Mean Case Study

Trudy says : Putting it on one of the 4 foot 8’s. Because then you could even all the heights out. And you might get close to the same answer.

She is understanding that if you spread all the numbers out to make a height that is the same for every person that would be your average. So she is using the numbers she has and adding or subtracting a few to each one until they are all the same.

Celica says: I think so because, like, if all the fourth graders stood on each other’s shoulders, and the third graders did that too, I think that the fourth graders would be higher.

She is understanding that you need to add up all the heights to see which group is taller, but is not thinking to figure out an average for each person. She is going in the right direction, but is not quite there yet.

Laural seems to have an understanding of how to arrive at the mean, because she states “we got the average of 13.2, but we rounded it down to 13 because we can’t have a point something.

She knows how to calculate the mean, but does not fully understand what it means. She is just getting rid of the .2 and this tells us that she needs to continue working on a deeper understanding of what the mean stands for.