Today wiped me out. I had all 3 sections of AP Stats today, and I heard the same comment from all 3 classes. It went something like this, “I never understood the z score when we did it in Alg 2. My teacher just said, memorize the formula and get find the number.”
Sigh.
That kind of statement just grates on me. We are required to teach it, but some teachers don’t take the time to teach it well, and some just give it a cursory glance and turn learners off.
I am starting from zero with the idea, and building slowly and carefully. It is exhausting though. I never asked who their teachers were (although 3 minutes with the computer will tell me) and I won’t ask. I respect my colleagues too much to think less of them for the destruction of the stats unit.
At least I have learners from my Alg 2 class last year who cheered when I said the phrase “z score”. That made me happy.
Okay, repeat after me: The z score is the number of standard deviations from the mean.
Why over complicate such a simple idea?
Okay, back to grading hell.
Don’t feel too bad. They don’t even teach that in any class prior to my AP Stats class at my school. So they all don’t know what I’m talking about. But I totally get the frustration from students only being “exposed” without proper discussions/descriptions.