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- 1. Survival Tools for Math-Phobic Students (and teachers) Lyn Millner / @lynmillner Florida Gulf Coast University
- 2. Viewing on Slideshare? Scroll down and click Notes to see assignments, links, etc.
- 3. This is not you.
- 4. When you teach math, you’re REALLY teaching… Strong reporting News judgment Ethics Critical thinking
- 5. This session • Teaching ideas • Examples • Drills and exercises • Assignments • Resources and links It’s all here on Google Drive.
- 6. Not covered • Polling/surveying • How to write numbers
- 7. Where numeracy belongs • In the first journalism class they take. • Don’t wait for a special topics class late in their sequence.
- 8. “Teach It!” Six Points 1. Treat numbers as a source 2. Numbers open the world 3. Numbers need context 4. Teach the best math for a story 5. Make them resourceful 6. Use Excel
- 9. The math they need • Calculating proportions • When to use a raw number vs. a rate • Measuring change • Understanding averages • Adjusting for inflation Rusty? Here’s a concise review.
- 10. How to deal with phobia (or apathy) • Build interest/motivation • Take action • Keep the stakes low • Be a knowledgeable, fearless guide
- 11. Assignment: Build Interest (on Google Drive) Whitney Curtis for the New York Times
- 12. The assignment: Read, Listen and Discuss 1. Counting the Uncounted 2. Robin Hood in Reverse 3. The Myth Behind Defensive Gun Ownership 4. Your Weight on Other Worlds 5. The Death Clock
- 13. Online discussion (and a spreadsheet baby step) ungraded
- 14. In-class discussion Use online discussion as a jumping- off point
- 15. Taking Action In-class exercises On Mars and death
- 16. Wait a minute ?
- 17. Teach it: Treat numbers as you would a human source. • Numbers are an opinion, a guess, a summary. • Interview, vet and balance them.
- 19. Discussion/Assignment: Politifact-Style Start: In class: Present a statement and ask students to interview the data. Expand: As a class: Build a list of what to do to vet ANY data source. Expand further: On their own: Ask them to identify a statement and dissect it.
- 20. Teach it Math is a way of learning about their world.
- 21. Example: Robin Hood in Reverse The Ohio athletics story. Photo: Jesse Fox
- 22. The lesson: Use what they care about Sex & beer? Not exactly. Credit scores? Yes. Finances? Yes
- 25. Teach it Put numbers in context.
- 26. Example: Hate Crime by State
- 27. Hate Crime in Context
- 29. Ask students What do you assume when you hear “hate crime”?
- 30. Teach it The best math for the story.
- 31. Out of the Aggregate
- 32. Assignment: Out of the Aggregate “I have the students study offences in five categories used by the Ottawa Police Force: crimes against the person; crimes against property; other criminal code offences; criminal code traffic offences; and drug offences.” David McKie, CBC News
- 33. Links to David McKie’s Out of the Aggregate assignment • Ottawa Police Force crime trends • A crime rate tutorial • Stories from the assignment
- 34. David McKie’s Handout Putting numbers into context.
- 35. Teach it Look it up. Be resource-ful, literally.
- 36. Give them references and allow open book. A concise review of averages and percentages A book that rocks: “Numbers in the Newsroom,” Sarah Cohen, for IRE. $10. Download here. A textbook with a strong chapter on numeracy: • “Telling the Story,” The Missouri Group.
- 37. Teach it Use Excel “I combine the basic math with simple spreadsheet training. They learn to do the calculations in Excel.” –Fred Vallance-Jones, University of King’s College
- 39. What’s on the test? Go beyond “calculate this formula.” • When to use what formula. • Check the math in a story. • Provide an example and ask what more they need to know. • Ask them to perform calculations in Excel. • Exercises that ask them to connect math to stories.
- 40. They should be able to answer questions like this: “Suggest three reporting circumstances in which you might calculate a percentage change. Be specific and detailed.”
- 42. Math-letes assignment: They create test questions • Supply example questions. • In groups, they create questions. • Grade them based on accuracy and quality. • Give them a study guide.
- 43. From Numbers to Stories Assignments on Google Drive • “We All Have to Eat and Sleep” (Kathleen Wickham, Ole Miss) • Driven by Numbers (Jeff Riley, FGCU)
- 44. Resources & Links • “Numbers in the Newsroom” Sarah Cohen for IRE. • “Math Tools for Journalists,” Kathleen Wickham • “Telling the Story,” The Missouri Group • NewsU’s “Math for Journalists” • EditTeach.org, “Math and Numbers” and “Math for Journalists and Readers”(includes test) • “Numbers” shows: Planet Money and Marketplace
- 45. Calculators • All BankRate calculators • Inflation calculator at the Minneapolis Fed site • Three-way percent calculator
- 46. On Google Drive • This presentation • The “Build Interest” assignment • Story assignment: “We All Have to Eat and Sleep” (Kathleen Wickham, Ole Miss) • Story assignment: Driven by Numbers (Jeff Riley, FGCU) • NewsU handout from the “Math for Journalists” course. • Math test & answers (UNC SJMC, Poynter edition) • Data table for testing Excel skills
- 47. Thanks to the following: • David McKie, CBC News • Fred Vallance-Jones, University of King’s College • Kathleen Wickham, University of Mississippi • Jeff Riley, Florida Gulf Coast University • NewsU, Poynter (newsu.org)
Editor's Notes
- Presentation links Politifact: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/jun/03/jeb-bush/jeb-bush-says-13-million-jobs-were-created-florida/ Your weight on other worlds: http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/ http://www.deathclock.com/ http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/foundations/math-for-journalists#
- Presentation links Politifact: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/jun/03/jeb-bush/jeb-bush-says-13-million-jobs-were-created-florida/ Your weight on other worlds: http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/ http://www.deathclock.com/ http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/foundations/math-for-journalists#
- Thankfully, you do not need to be a math teacher. Teaching math to journalism students is a tool in the context of the skills you already teach. Because… The math your students need is very simple. Your students learned it, as you did, in fifth grade. And (b) What you’re really teaching…
- And you know how to do that. If you see teaching math through this lens, everything becomes much simpler. Teaching math in isolation is doing students a disservice. They see it as a week or two of a class that they have to “get through” as opposed to integral to journalism.
- Polling/surveys It’s best to do a separate class or classes on opinion polls. BTW, When you do, here are some ideas; -- Require that they conduct a poll for a story assignment. -- Critique some polls – perhaps on Facebook or on a news site, as a class. These critiques can open up discussions about the wording of the questions in a poll; small sample sizes; margin of error; and bias.
- Today’s ideas can be integrated into an introductory journalism class.
- Here are six points you need to teach students about numbers.
- Proportion: percents, fractions and rates. Measuring change: simple differences, percent change, percentage point difference. Averages: medians, averages (mean), mode For a concise review of averages and percentages, go here: http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/foundations/math-for-journalists Example of percent change: Textbook prices this year: $200 Textbook prices last year: $190 Percent change between this year and last: (200-190)/200 = 5% Example of percentage point difference: Sales tax last year: 5.5%. Sales tax this year: 6% Sales tax rose by ½ a percentage point from last year to this year.
- Many of your students aren’t interested in math. Or they think they’re bad at it. MOTIVATION: Help them see why it’s important and why it’s relevant to them. That helps build interest. ACTION: The way to get better at math is to do it. Lots of in-class practice. LOW STAKES: Ungraded. Let them work in pairs or groups. Let them use references. BE A KNOWLEDGEABLE, FEARLESS GUIDE You, of course, should do any exercises first so you aren’t floundering when you need to be helping them.
- Here’s our first assignment. The entire, expanded assignment, you’ll find here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qROTi2D4o9e5uU5k9k1R666V3d6_S1jRbGWxXkcTAjY/edit?usp=sharing This image is from a story by On the Media, “Counting the Uncounted,” an interview with the reporters from the Guardian and the Washington Post who collected data on how many people were killed by police in 2015. The government does not keep a reliable record of how many people are killed by police each year. So this shows the importance of numbers in holding powerful institutions accountable
- The purpose of the “Build Interest” assignment is to get them interested before they come to class. They will come to class talking about why numbers are important in journalism. They’ll supply raw data you can use for the math exercises. I like these five items. They will help you make the points you need to make about how numbers and journalism go together. They provide context about why math is really important. ROBIN HOOD IN REVERSE: A student investigation of athletics fees at Ohio universities. It caused surprise, strong feelings and curiosity and, of course, there was a huge numbers component. I’ll say more about this in a minute. THE MYTH From the story: “There’s a myth in America that firearms are used defensively 2.5 million times a year. Far more than they are used offensively. The problem is, it isn’t true.” This interview breaks down a faulty statistic and shows how a number can be misleading, and influential. You’re introducing the idea that numbers are opinions. AND FOR FUN Your weight on other worlds. Check it out. The death clock. Check it out.
- This helps you assess where they are. It gets them talking to each other. On an online discussion board, start some threads. Suggested questions: Athletics story from Ohio: How did you feel after reading it? Which numbers were most effective? Number of people killed by cops: Why do we need to know how many people cops kill every year? Where did the reporters get their numbers? Why did they choose different methods? When are you going to die? Add your year of death and age at death to this spreadsheet. [Teachapaloozans: Enter your data, too.]
- The online discussion will prime them for this. You’ll have fodder based on their online discussion. Drive home your points about numbers. You might ask them… For the Counting the Uncounted story: Did it surprise you that the federal government doesn’t keep a reliable record of how many people are killed each year by cops? Why are these numbers important? For the gun myth story: Include a discussion of how a statistic gets distorted, based on the guns used in self defense number (from On the Media). The points you’re making are that numbers connect us to our world; hold powerful institutions accountable; make people aware of issues; show the impact; and make people care. End with “Your Weight on Other Worlds” and “Die” because…
- This is where you move into the actual math. As part of the online discussion, you had students enter some data in a Google spreadsheet. Their year of death and age at death. Put them in groups. Give them a reference handout for how to calculate mean, median, mode, percent, percent change, ratio, etc. I suggest this one: http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/foundations/math-for-journalists Ask them to do exercises with the Weight on Other Worlds and Death Clock. Here are some example questions. Come up with others to cover additional concepts. Mean, median, mode Using the shared Google spreadsheet: Ask students to calculate the median, mode and mean year of death for the class. As in, the average person in this class will die in [what year]. The mean death year is… Ask them which is more accurate. (2) Percents What percentage of your life have you lived already? Change your answer for smoking and recalculate. How many years do you live if you smoke? How many years if you don’t smoke? What percent of your life is lost to smoking? [years shorter / years you’ll live as non-smoker]. You’ve just calculated percentage decrease. (3) Ratios What’s the ratio of your weight on the moon to your weight on Earth? Reduce it to the lowest denominator. If you move to the moon, what ratio of your weight do you lose?
- Mars? Death? Where did these numbers come from? We’ve been treating them as if they’re real. If this were a human being who was telling you when you were going to die, what would you ask them? for Your Weight on Other Worlds Some guy named Ron Hipschman. Who’s he? Have them look him up. Is that a real place? How could you make sure these numbers are accurate? for Death Clock Where are these numbers from? (The study is cited. And the CIA World Factbook.) Go to the original source and run the calculations on your own. Does this look like a legit site? What do you make of the ads on the site? Do they increase your skepticism?
- This idea of numbers as a source is from Sarah Cohen, who wrote “Numbers in the Newsroom for IRE, which is an incredible book. It’s accessible. Indispensible. She says… Numbers have the air of authority, but we shouldn’t automatically treat them as authoritative. Sometimes the numbers are backed by years of credible study; often they aren’t. Most numbers are estimates. Some are accurate; some are not. Some are relevant; some are not. So they need to be interviewed, vetted, balanced and selected carefully. And if the reporter is the one doing the calculations, calculated carefully and double-checked. Just as you would with a human source, ask… “How do you know that?” “Where did this information come from?” Students should ask not only the person who supplies the numbers. -- Ask an expert whether the numbers seem reasonable. -- Determine whether the numbers are complete and whether they give the whole picture -- Find out whether there are numbers from another reputable source that differ significantly.
- Politifact: Story about Jeb Bush claiming that more jobs were created under his watch in Florida than under Rick Perry’s in Texas. http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/jun/03/jeb-bush/jeb-bush-says-13-million-jobs-were-created-florida/ This is a direct knock at Perry. Politifact looked at whether Bush deserves credit for these numbers. They checked his numbers and analyzed the context and causes for them. Check it out. Why I love it: -- Politifact lists its sources -- they did eleven interviews with actual people -- they confirmed the data with the Bureau of Labor Statistics By examining this and other Politifact stories, students will see the work involved in examining numbers. They’ll see that numbers should not be taken as authoritative, unimpeachable things.
- You can build on this as follows – Present a statement by a university official or SGA candidate and ask students what they need to know in order to verify it. Ask: How would they interview the data? What questions would they ask it? Who do they need to talk to? Show: Where the data came from. Together as a class: Build a list of what we need to do in order to vet this source called data. Out-of-class assignment that branches from this: Have students take a claim by an SGA candidate or by the university and dissect it. Require that they (a) verify the data; (b) check the math; (c) provide context; (d) interview people; (e) list their sources.
- Here’s the next Teach It point.
- Students in an investigative journalism class at the University of Cincinnati researched the eight largest public universities in Ohio and found that many were charging hidden fees to keep money-losing athletic departments going. shows how numbers get our attention. Ask the students: When you read this story, how many of you started wondering what the deal is at our school about the athletic fees you pay? Illustrates that numbers make us care. Illustrates impact, an element of newsworthiness. Done by students on a topic that greatly interests students. This is a story students care about. It creates curiosity about where athletics fees are going at their own university. And it was reported and written by students.
- I like to have them do this out of class because not everyone wants to share their financial concerns. Have them go to BankRate and play with the calculators. This screenshot shows the student loan calculator, but there are countless calculators here. Check it out: http://www.bankrate.com/calculators.aspx COMPOUND INTEREST and ANNUAL RATES Have them use BankRate to understand compound interest. -- How much money will you have when you’re 40 if you set aside $20 a month right now? -- If you pay only the minimum balance on a credit card debt of $1,500, how long will it take you to pay it off at a 12% annual interest rate? Explain why it’s important to calculate annual rates, as opposed to averaging growth over a long period of time. See p. 40 of “Number in the Newsroom” for more. INFLATION Have them understand inflation: -- Direct them to the inflation calculator here. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. -- Have them look up the federal minimum wage. Has minimum wage kept up with inflation? For the above, solicit their comments on an online discussion board.
- Here’s another fun calculator. -- How long until you’re a millionaire? >> http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/saving-million-dollars.aspx By the way, have they checked their credit scores? Do they know how they can best improve them?
- Instead of reporting on raw numbers… How big is the number? How does it compare to others? “Putting numbers into context,” handout from David McKie, CBC, http://www.davidmckie.com/PUTTING%20NUMBERS%20INTO%20CONTEXT.pdf
- Source: Hate Crime Statistics, 2013, www.fbi.gov.
- Source: Hate Crime Statistics, 2013, www.fbi.gov.
- Point out that not all agencies report. The data for any given state could be incomplete. Source: Hate Crime Statistics, 2013, www.fbi.gov.
- Discuss the types of hate crimes. They include vandalism, intimidation, rape, murder. Is there a difference? Which leads to… The math you choose to tell the story, matters.
- Remember my discussion question about the Ohio athletics story: Which numbers were most effective? That was intended to get them thinking about how to choose the math to put in the story. Do not overload your story with numbers. Choose the numbers and calculations that tell the story best – the ones that give the most accurate, fair and relevant picture. You should provide some story examples and ask them to choose the formulas that best “tell the story.”
- Crime is a good way to teach this, that numbers in the aggregate must be broken down. Politicians think that being tough on crime wins elections. An official might tell you she’s tough on crime. But what if numbers for major crimes have been falling for quite some time? Is this claim as meaningful? Ask what TYPE of crime. Is the official going to be tough on all types of crime.
- The concise review is a link to journalistsresource.org Reporting with Numbers: it’s concise, covers story ideas in the numbers Numbers in the Newsroom: how to’s for basic math, polls and graphs.
- As soon as you type = in a cell, you can choose fx and it brings up a formula builder.
- You’ll find a trove of quizzes and questions on Google Drive. I’ve provided a link at the end of this presentation.
- Provide a spreadsheet. This one is on Google Drive. It’s kind of boring, as it doesn’t suggest much in the way of stories. But you’re welcome to use it. Instructions to students: Copy the spreadsheet into Excel and calculate the following: In a new column, the percentage of each industry to the total employed for 2014. In a new column, the percentage change in employment growth for each industry from 2013 to 2014.
- We All Have To Eat and Sleep This one won a GIFT award. Students work in teams and tackle one of four topics: What it costs to live in their town; Where to find healthy food and what it costs; How much does a family of four pay for food and what did they pay five years ago?; Comparing food prices on campus and off. Driven by Numbers I like this one because it gives students lots of latitude in their story generation and gets them to think creatively about finding stories that depend on numbers. For all assignments, require that students submit raw numbers, where they got them, and their calculations in Excel. Pair them up to check their figures. -30-
- NewsU’s course Math for Journalists -- reducing fractions, math essentials specifically for journalists, such as calculating cost of living and estimating crowd sizes. I like it because it helps you compare numbers more meaningfully and because it teaches what the appropriate formula is for different types of stories.