Teaching Probability

These titles focus on the approaches that can be taken in the classroom to develop skills and a conceptual understanding of specific mathematical concepts.

Jenny Gage (Author), David Spiegelhalter (Author)

9781316605899, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 August 2016

206 pages
24.4 x 17.1 x 0.9 cm, 0.37 kg

Written by leading subject specialists, Teaching Probability is designed to support teaching concepts in probability by providing a new approach to this difficult subject from a perspective not limited by a syllabus, giving teachers both theoretical and practical knowledge of an innovative way of teaching probability. This alternative approach to teaching probability focuses on the methods that teachers can apply to help their students engage with the topic using experiments and mathematical models to solve problems, considering how to overcome common misconceptions and the way in which probability can be communicated.

Foreword
Introduction
Aims and purpose of the book
Part I. A New Approach to Teaching Probability: 1. Introduction
2. Probability in the classroom
3. The probability curriculum
Part II. Classroom Activities: 4. Fair game
5. Which team will win?
6. The dog ate my homework!
7. Choosing representatives
Part III. Assessment and Sample Examination Questions: 8. The Probability scale
9. Event as 'favourable outcome' within an 'equally likely' sample space
10. Understanding fixed probability
11. Complement
12. Mutually exclusive events adding to 1 (more than two categories)
13. Multiple attributes - union and intersection
14. Expectation
15. Estimating probabilities from experiments
16. Identical independent events
17. Two non-identical independent events
18. Two dependent events (without replacement) - conditional probability
19. Conditional probability - inverse (Bayes' theorem)
Part IV. Risk and Uncertainty in the Real World: 20. What's the best strategy
21. What does 'random' look like?
22. How should we change our beliefs?
23. How probable is probable?
24. Misconceptions
25. Heads or tails, boy or girl?
26. Your risk is increased!
27. It's a lottery
28. Switch or stick?
29. It's not fair!
30. Take a risk?
31. Happy birthday to you, and you, and…
32. How long do I have to wait?
33. Do you know what you don't know?
Index.

Subject Areas: Educational: Mathematics & numeracy [YQM]