Framing Our Reading, Part 3

https://blog.minitab.com/blog/the-statistics-game/moneyball-shows-the-power-of-statistics?fbclid=IwAR0uSn-MQYuBwGcKjFJnS-YQeCQK6kQaXgNqG1_Rypn6GXJCD9U3yEUN8cY

This week, Susan, Courtney, and I stuck with Statistics in finding an article on the Oakland A’s and Moneyball. This article talks about how Billy Beane used sabermetrics to change the way data analytics and statistics were used in the MLB. The article breaks down an example of a 1-Proportion Test and proves that Billy Beane’s statistical analysis was actually very accurate. This article also hits the three components of text complexity, qualitative, quantitative, and the reader and the task (Burke). The qualitative aspect of the article is that is furthers the students understanding of the topic of statistical testing and analysis. The quantitative aspect is that the text is appropriate and at the reading level of high school AP seniors. The reader and the task aspect is that the students will have prior knowledge to this information because the article is an extension to the lesson to show how these tests are used in the real world.

As the reader, this article packs in lot of information. It gives important definitions for different components that are calculated in a 1-Proportion Test and what each element means in terms of the problem. One of the important things that I found in this article was the meaning behind the p-value. Another important thing that I found in this article were the images of the tests because it gives each piece that is used to calculate the statistics. I also found that the article highlighting the percentage of the Oakland A’s winning 20 consecutive games and how it was calculated is important, as well. The quote that stuck out to me was when the article was referenced the trade of Pena and Giambi,

Pena and Giambi were traded at the end of May, when the A’s record was 20-26. Oakland went 83-33 the rest of the season. By the looks of it, these trades helped!

This was a shock when I was reading because it was just proof that the numbers don’t lie, and Billy Beane was on to something with his statistical analysis. Some of the key words in this article are p-value, significant, binomial distribution, and 1-Proportion Test. These words are key vocabulary words in the probability unit that are needed to be familiar with in order to grasp the data that is being explained in the article and how the numbers came about to form conclusions.

There are many important pieces to this article I found as I read. I was able to relate to the article because it was from a relevant movie of a sport that I know, baseball. It also gave an example of how statistics is used in the real world and how it is such an important aspect of the sports. The calculator images of the components of a 1-Proportion Test and a binomial distribution lend to where each piece of the calculation comes from and how to interpret their meanings. Importantly, this article explains how to find probability for consecutive wins, so the reader can get a better image of the importance of statistics and how it helped the A’s turn out a better record than before and save millions. The message this reading gave to me was that statistics is an asset to not just the game of baseball, but to many other sports and aspects of real life.

As the teacher, I found that this sports article is packed with good information that statistics students will see throughout the year. The key concepts of how 1-Proportion Tests can be used outside of the classroom and how it has benefitted a larger organization are important in showing students possible future career paths they could take that use what we are actually learning in class. The images and break down of the tests and how to interpret the results are most important in this article. In order for students to grasp those concepts, they need to know some background on the process if running a 1-Proportion Test and a binomial distribution. This will enable students in understanding the meaning of the article. The perspective of this article is straight forward, informational, and potentially pro Oakland. The author does a good job of adding in a little humor to the article with some side comments, such as “… to find the answer I could multiple .636 by itself 20 times….ooooooooor I could be lazy and have Minitab do it. I’m going to go with lazy”. This may seem to give mixed messages to students, but a lot of statistical analysis is done on some type of calculator that is programmed to spit out an answer given the right information, so I took this as students can see that there are resources out there that can make their lives easier. The author’s purpose of this was to demonstrate that there are applications where this type of test can be used and how it is important, so when a student asks, “when am I ever going to use this?”, you can respond “when you become a baseball statistical analyst.” In addition to this article having a good mix of unit vocabulary and being about a relatable subject matter, it is short, so student engagement and attention should not be lost. I also found that this article went well with a few standards that I covered in Statistics this year. Some of the standards this article covers are,

·       ~ S.IC.1 – Understand statistics as a process for making inferences about population parameters based on a random sample from that population

·       ~ S.IC.6 – Evaluate reports based on data

·       ~ S.CP.2 – Understand that two events A and B are independent if the probability of A and B occurring together is the product of their probabilities and use this characterization to determine if they are independent

·        ~ S.IC.4 – Use data from a sample survey to estimate a population mean or proportion

These standards are found in almost every unit of a Statistics course, which make this article a good fit for my classes.

In determining a strategy to use for this article, my group chose paired summarizing. “Paired summarizing provides a format for two students to work together to express their understandings and summarize narrative or informational text” (McLaughlin, 2015). I will begin this by explaining to students how to summarize and identify essential information. Then I would demonstrate by showing the students a short paragraph and model identifying key information, so they know what types of things to look for in this article. Once students know what is expected and what to do, then I allow students to work with a partner and guide them into paired questioning. They will read the article independently and summarize on their own, then they will compare and contrast their summaries with one another. As the teacher, I will be encouraging them to ask questions on what one another has summarized and what information they thought to be important. At the end, we would come together as a class to come up with one class summary.  This strategy would be effective for my students because it allows them to compare viewpoints on what others think is important in reading. It also helps them to learn how to identify key information apart from information that may be filler or unnecessary in identifying the message.

References

Burke, B. A Close Look at Close Reading.

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content Area Reading: Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness. Pearson Education