On
the
Side
Probability
Activities
Unders
and Overs
You can't accumulate unless you speculate.
A
Special Set of Dice
You
can win lots of money with these dice!
The
Monty Hall Puzzle
One
of the world's great puzzles.
Prisoner!
Can
you release your prisoners first?
STEPS
Tutorial
Interactive computer-based
tutorials
Worksheets
Dice
Difference
A
Dice-Free Worksheet
See!
Problems in context!
Calculate! Real probabilities!
Websites
Chance and Basic Probability, from the Hobart Mercury newspaper.
Unders and Overs
Now having thrown out that challenge, the first activity I am going to suggest to you involves dice! But here the dice are being used in the context of a once popular gambling game and not as a dry as toast exercise with little relevance.
Unders and Overs was once a popular game at school fetes in Queensland. It was illegal, as was all gambling, but people turned a blind eye as the money raised went to a school. I have used this activity in the past, but not with the flair that Bill Simpson demonstrated at a Fun of Mathematics night at the University of Queensland.
A Special Set of Dice
Here is a neat little trick to play on your students, based on a special set of dice. Bring into your class a special set of dice, and then explain the rules -
'I have this set of four dice. We will each chose a die; in fact since I am such a generous person, I'll let you choose first. We'll roll the two dice and the winner is the person who die has the highest number. The first person to record five wins is the champion. Now if I am the champion, you have to do an extra hour of homework tonight. If you are the champion, then you are excused from homework for one week. Any takers? After all, you've got to be in it to win it.'
Of course, the student will be excused from doing the extra homework if the class can figure out why the teacher wins almost all of the time.
The Monty Hall Problem
The rec.puzzles newsgroup regulars get very annoyed when a newbie finds the newsgroup and immediately posts his favourite puzzle, which usually turns out to be a puzzle that was posted last week and the week before that and.... The puzzle most commonly posted by newbies is the 'Three Men and the Bellboy' puzzle, but breathing down the neck of the bellboy is the 'Monty Hall' puzzle, which deals with elementary probability. Now the reason these puzzles are so popular is because they are great puzzles! The Monty Hall puzzle can even boast about a little collection of websites devoted to it.
STEPS
The STEPS modules are a collection of hypertext-based tutorials covering a wide range of statistics topics, including the binomial distribution and conditional probability. Visit the STEPS page for further information and a list of the modules available.
Dice Difference
Dice Difference is really a dice game with a difference! Rather than add the numbers on the two dice together, subtract the smaller from the larger. Person A gets the totals 0, 1 and 2, while person B gets the totals, 3, 4 and 5. Is this game fair?
A Dice-Free Worksheet
What message is being given to students about the importance of understanding probability when a large proportion of the exercises in our texts are based on coins, cards, dice, marbles and urns? A Dice-Free Worksheet gives examples of realistic applications of probability that are suitable for Maths A and Maths B students. While such exercises take some effort to create, I think the effort is necessary if we are to help students realise why we study this topic.
A website containing a collection of articles from the Hobart Mercury newspaper that illustrate various aspects of probability in the news.
| Read
Me First! | Introduction | Acknowledgements |
| Looking
for Patterns |Stemplots | Dotplots | Histograms |
| Measures
of Location | Measures of Spread |
| Boxplots | Normal
Plots
| Scatterplots |
|
Assessment | Datasets | Resources |
| VISITOR'S
BOOK
| SEARCH | HOME |
| Linear Regression | Normal
Distribution |
| Probability | Sampling | Confidence
Intervals |
| Hypothesis Testing | Non
Linear Regression |