![]() I first encountered Gerd Gigerenzer at a conference in 2010 in Slovenia. He was a very entertaining and informative speaker and I enjoyed his presentation so much I bought the book! One thing that stayed with me was that medical students got less the 25% correct on a test on probability. Specialists didn’t fare much better. How are we able to make informed decisions in life, if we don’t understand the statistics? Especially the probabilities! “There is a 30% chance of rain tomorrow” Does this mean it will either rain or not rain tomorrow? It will rain tomorrow in 30% of the area? It will rain 30% of the time? Or it will rain on 30% of the days like tomorrow? We need to know what the 30% is referring to. The book has many examples (some I now use in my classes) where statistics and probability have been incorrectly interpreted with dire consequences, a man who tested to positive to AIDS who committed suicide but didn’t have AIDS, people going to jail for offences they didn’t commit. My pet favourite for misinterpreting risk is Angelina Jolie. Her decision to have her breasts removes was front page news, the admission the quoted risk was incorrect about page 12. Gerd takes us through interpreting the risk by simplifying the often confusing conditional probabilities and just using a “how many people out of 100” approach. Consider a mammogram. “Your friend is in tears and is wondering what a positive result means. Is it absolutely positive she has breast cancer, or is the chance 99 percent, 95 percent, 90 percent, 50 percent or something else?” Then Gerd shows how anybody, even those who are math phobic can work it out. “Think of 100 women. One has breast cancer, and she will probably test positive. Of the 99 who do not have breast cancer, 9 will also test positive. How many of those who test positive actually have breast cancer?” So it is easy to see there were 10 women who tested positive, but only 1 (10%) actually had cancer! ![]() The book also discusses the relevance of national screening. While those who are picked up by the screening have improved outcomes, there is also a downside. Many of those who test positive do not and have a negative outcome – the next steps involve risks and then there is the stress. Gerd looks at whether this is the best use of the Health dollar but leaves the conclusion up to the reader. Gerd is very qualified to discuss statistics as he is currently director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development[1]and director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy,[2] both in Berlin, Germany. His mission is to try and make risk more understandable to everyone. I thoroughly recommend this book to anybody interested in improving their understanding of Risk and wanting to make informed decisions in their lives. You do not need to be a Maths nerd to understand, you just need some critical thinking!
~Jeanette Chapman
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Engagement
It has been a hell of a year, but slowly I almost feel like I am back to being a useful human again. The mind wanders a lot when injured flitting across books, surfing the web, diving into Netflix series and even painting. Apart from the act of healing what was I truly engaged in? When I imagine engagement this is what springs to my mind.
Having a goal that is almost overwhelmingly absorbing. Yet we engage in so many different ways. Often we see these differing levels of engagement in the classroom as well as social life. Lessoncraft has been something I have been musing over for some time. I remember a few years ago at a staff function somewhere else getting a wee bit bored of the chat (as the company was nowhere near as engaging as the present company I have) and started to talk about what our best lesson was for that year. I wonder can you remember your first truly amazing lesson? ![]()
I remember some of the shockers both recent and in the past but what about the ones that just made you bubble inside? I cast my mind back to my S5/S6 (12/13) class of 2006 - a lesson on Stewardship. It started as a heartfelt rant (semi-planned) and flowed through to some student discussion, then writing and finally ended up with a destination using the book “365 days to change the world”.
The destination was a call to arms for the youth. If you agree with what you have written if you are passionate about this on Saturday I am spending the day cleaning a beach, join me or do the same which beach would you adopt. In more recent time, engagement has changed. The world has moved on and it seems to spin a little faster. I found a great tool to plan learning journeys on and can share it here.
If you listened to the 10 mins of that then I may have engaged you also. The lesson itself that day wasn’t amazing but I went into class buzzing with excitement about trying a new approach to the learning. It fell flat when the tech let me down. Luckily I was savvy enough to fix it myself as I had been too engaged in plan A to actually have a plan B. The 1 to 1 computer environment led to me being able to engage in meaningful conversation about what we were doing students fears and hopes for their futures. I used the steps in the journey as learning sparks for the students to think on and share with me. ![]()
In Mathematical Mindsets, by the wonderful Jo Boaler (I think PLT has my copy), she talks about low floor and high ceiling activities. The idea of engaging activities that students can all enter into and engage with but are able to challenge. Simple clicking and sorting activities with some room for deeper thought. Ideally it would have rolled into some extended writing or another suitable task.
My lesson outlined above wasn’t flawless but it was enough for me to proudly tell Steph that night after she asked me:
“How was work?” “Great! I have changed the world.” “How?” She asked. “I don’t know, I just think I might have.” ~Duncan Trickey “Tasha is just out of poets’ school, |
When the world was too much |
(2) “Not Actually Being in Dumfries” by Hugh MacMillan from Not Actually Being in Dumfires, Luath Press Ltd, 2015
(3) A Scots term for someone from Dumfries
(4) Summer in Dumfries, by Hugh MacMillan from Not Actually Being in Dumfires, Luath Press Ltd, 2015
(5) May Revision, by Hugh MacMillan from Not Actually Being in Dumfires, Luath Press Ltd, 2015
(6) Bad News about Suicide by Drowning, by Hugh MacMillan from Not Actually Being in Dumfires, Luath Press Ltd, 2015
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