We believe that students learn best, are actively engaged, and are genuinely interested when working on real-world problems. This can be done by giving students the opportunity to work collaboratively on projects that investigate authentic, familiar problems. This article shares one such project that was used in an introductory statistics course. We describe the steps taken to investigate why customers are charged more for iced coffee than hot coffee, which included collecting data and using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Interspersed throughout the article, we describe strategies that can help teachers implement the project and scaffold material to assist students who may have gaps in their mathematical background and offer suggestions if using the lesson with students who are mathematically stronger. Students were highly motivated and enthusiastic to work on a problem with a rich, readily understood context. This article provides teachers with an alternative way to assess student learning, and gives students the opportunity to work the way statisticians work.
Open-ended questions that can be solved using different strategies help students learn and integrate content, and provide teachers with greater insights into students' unique capabilities and levels of understanding. This article provides a problem that was modified to allow for multiple approaches. Students tended to employ high-powered, complex, familiar solution strategies rather than simpler, more intuitive strategies, which suggests that students might need more experience working with informal solution methods. During the semester, by incorporating open-ended questions, I gained valuable feedback, was able to better model realworld problems, challenge students with different abilities, and strengthen students' problem solving skills.Word Count: 99
Young people today need to be financially literate, which depends in large part on being able to apply mathematics principles correctly to make real-world decisions. Therefore, it is not surprising that mathematics and financial education organizations and educators recognize the value of teaching real-world financial exercises (Jump$tart 2015; Lusardi 2012; NCTM 2000, 2016; CCSSI 2010; Sole 2014). Although educators recognize the importance of financial education in high school, students are not learning these skills (Bortz 2012). Only seventeen states require that students take a course in personal finance in high school (Council of Economic Education [CCE] 2016). College students also have gaps in their understanding of finance (Chen and Volpe 1998; Sole 2014). Given how valuable these life skills are, it is surprising that when 36 percent of millennials were given the opportunity in high school, college, or on the job to learn about finance, only 22 percent took advantage of this opportunity (Mottola 2014).
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