What happens when your teachers get tired of grading tests and want to use games of chance to determine your grade? How would you decide which game they should play? Learn how to use expected value and standard notation to compare two games — your grade depends on it!

Concepts

expected value, standard deviation

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Additional Tags

math

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Instructional Ideas

• Have class members work in pairs, with one playing Game One and the other playing Game Two

Classroom Considerations

• Parts of the activity may be too difficult for some learners, such as developing a formula for "swing" or for "mean of the mean"
• Some states use a specific form (e.g., sigma notation) of the formula for standard deviation; be sure pupils use the appropriate form

Pros

• Concepts are explored concretely with coins before being formally defined mathematically

Cons

• Some teachers and students may have an issue with the content, which equates grades to games of chance

Common Core

HSS-ID.A.2 HSS-MD.A.3 HSS-MD.B.5.a HSS-MD.B.7