Lesson Plan

Explain that a measure of center summarizes a distribution with one number representing a typical value.

Explain that a measure of variation summarizes with one number how spread out the values are.

Compute the mean of a small data set and interpret it as the leveling value.

Compute the median of a data set (odd or even count) and interpret it as the positional middle.

Compute the range of a data set and interpret it as a measure of variation.

Recognize that a single number cannot capture every feature of a distribution -- and that mean and median can disagree, with the gap reflecting the distribution's shape.

6.SP.A.3

Recognize that a measure of center for a numerical data set summarizes all of its values with a single number, while a measure of variation describes how its values vary with a single number. -- Standard 6.SP.A.3