PME Project Group for Stochastics Teaching and Learning

<http://www.ugr.es/~batanero/pmegroup>

Letter No 19 - July 1999

Dear Friends,

1. Apology for Delay in Producing Newsletter

This Newsletter was meant to be distributed in March. Our delay is caused because all of the convenors have in different ways found their time taken up with other pressing issues. Carmen has recently become President-elect of the International Association for Statistical Education. Her new responsibilities have meant that she realised that she would not have the time to attend PME. Dani has been organising a statistics symposium in Israel to precede PME. John & Kath have been editors of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia Conference Proceedings which have just come off the press. For some time they were not certain if they would be able to attend PME, partly because it is being held in Australian term-time.

We all know the pressures under which we all work, and we apologise for what we have not done, but we are afraid that it was not really possible for us to do more at this stage.

Please note that Carmen, Kath and John are all travelling away from home from 8 July, so any responses to this newsletter should be made to Dani.

2. Stochastics Presentations at PME

The following is a complete list of stochastics presentations, obtained from the PME Web site at <http://members.tripod.-com/~IGPME/pme23/presenters.html#RR>.

Amir, G., Linchevski, L. & Shefet, M.

The probabilistic thinking of 11-12 year old children

Ayres, P. & Way, J.

Decision-making strategies in probability experiments: The influence of prediction

confirmation

Ben-Zvi, D.

Constructing an understanding of data graphs

Carroll, J.

Discovering the story behind the snapshot: Using life histories to give a human face to

statistical interpretations

Students' understanding of regression lines

Ojeda, A-M.

The research of ideas of probability in the elementary level of education

Reading, C.

Understanding data tabulation and representation

Shaw, P. F. & Outhred, L.

Students' use of diagrams in statistics

Truran, J. M. & Truran, K. M.

Using a handbook model to interpret findings about children's comparisons of random

generators

Truran, K. M. & Truran, J. M.

Are dice independent? Some responses from children and adults

Short Oral Communications

Kot, L. Kiro, S. & Arcavi, A.

Mistaken conjectures as a trigger to develop basic probabilistic

reasoning

Poster Presentations

Lane, D. M.

The Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics: A web resource for teaching

statistics

3. Proposed Book—“Teaching and Learning Statistics: Implications for Research”

It has proved difficult to maintain the momentum in this project. We have received copies of four completed abstracts. All will be useful chapters and fit the requirements. With the introductory and final chapters this makes 6 definite starters. But we have not been able to develop the work further, partly for the reasons listed above. It is clear that we will not have the time to do more this year. We shall discuss this matter at PME and report back to the list in September.

4. PME Project Group for Stochastics Teaching and Learning

The term “Project Group” has replaced the term “Working Group”.

A further consequence of our overload this year as been that one of us failed to read the letter from the organisers, and to make some modifications to the proposal for a Project Group. However, we shall try to arrange a meeting of interested members at a Project group meeting time. If you are coming to the conference, please ask one of us for details.

5. The Future of This Group

Members will realise that life in universities is becoming more pressured, and funds are becoming shorter. It is clear from conversations with one or two people that they will find regular travel to conferences in the future rather difficult. And in any case, people move on to other responsibilities, and something has to be let go. It is likely that the leadership of this Group will need to change from 2000.

Furthermore, the heavy Conference load in 2000 raises some special problems. This creates some problems. Because Carmen is co-ordinating the IASE Round Table this will take all her time. As well, all of these conferences have been timetabled to fit the northern hemisphere summer, and are being held during Australian term time. This creates further problems for Kath & John.

The special value of PME is that it puts emphasis on Psychology, Mathematics and Education. This is a very important partnership which we need to promote as much as possible, and which we should not let go of.

We are doing what we can to widen the scope of this group, and to involve as many people as possible, but it is not easy to achieve. We would emphasise that we do welcome feedback from members, positive or negative. Are there any members of the group who would like to be more closely involved from 2000?

6. Next Newsletter

This will be sent out near the beginning of September. Any contributions by 15 Aug 1999, please.

John Truran <jtruran@arts.adelaide.edu.au>

Kath Truran <Kath.Truran@unisa.edu.au>

Dani Ben-Zvi <ntdben@wiccmail.weizmann.ac.il>

Carmen Batanero <batanero@goliat.ugr.es>

Web Page <http://www.ugr.es/local/batanero/–pmegroup.htm>