Excel is an electronic spreadsheet program used for storing, organising and manipulating data. In the classroom, it is a sophisticated and flexible reporting, planning and presentation tool that enables quick organisation of data and graphical representations that make data analysis so much easier and therefore enhances the learning environment. I found these facts about the use of Excel in the classroom very interesting:
- Using Excel can enhance understanding of content within a graphic presentation of the information; it provides a visual representation of data that makes it easier to analyse.
- Excel reduces the difficulty of plotting data and allows students a means for interpreting the data.
- You can also reverse the traditional process of analysing data by giving students a completed chart and see if they can reconstruct the underlying worksheet. This goes a long way toward helping them understand the relationship between the data and the chart.
- Excel can easily convert any chart or data set into a web page, making it very easy to share information among groups. As an example, many universities are using this model for data sharing between students who aren't even on the same continent.
- Excel's ability to dynamically generate charts and graphs in seconds makes it easy to quickly demonstrate relationships between numbers.
- As a teaching tool, students can see how different types of graphs and charts can be used to represent the same series of data. As one teacher stated, "For years it took me three to five days to teach kids the use a pie chart, bar graph, and/or a line graph to accurately represent information. Now with Excel, it makes it so much easier because the kids are far more motivated to use the application to manipulate data and to chart any information."
- One of the best things is that you can compare data between any two or more variables. Using storage devices (disks), you can store data and use it to conduct a comparative analysis of any information that you have collected over time. For example, you can compare data collected by a group of collaborating teachers within one school, one county, or around the world.
Clearly there are many benefits to using Excel in the classroom but I think it is important to remember that the collecting of data would be meaningless without the ability to analyse it. As described in the Australian Curriculum, computational and systems thinking are essential problem-solving tools required in the 21st century. In view of this, high-ordered thinking and understanding leads to effective and efficient decision-making about data management, representation and interpretation to meet needs and shape preferred futures. This is a substantial cognitive load requiring the working memory to deal with technical aspects of digital literacy. As learners in digital technologies, we require time for exploration of hardware and software functions to allow skills and knowledge to become more automatic as they are ingrained into the long-term memory. Please click on the EXCEL DATA REPRESENTATION button below to access the task as prescribed by the assessment task.
|
To engage students in these activities, the use of real-life problems makes learning more authentic for students. Depending on year level, the teacher can pose any of the following questions to the class to provide a context for the activity:
- What kinds of rubbish do we see at school?
- Do we eat more whole food or processed food at school?
- Do junior or senior students produce the most rubbish?
- How much rubbish do you think you bring to school each day/week?
- How much rubbish does your family produce?
- How much rubbish do people produce worldwide every day?
The activity regarding a school’s contribution to the local waste landfill can be modified and applied in the classroom to develop insight into data representation and pattern searching to meet the content learning descriptors in the F-2, Years 3-5 and Years 5-6 curriculum. These content descriptors are shown in the table on the right.
The content descriptors as described above for the F-2 level can be applied in the Year 1 Maths learning area for the development of understanding of one-to-one correspondence and describing displays by identifying categories with the greatest or least number of objects as follows:
The content descriptors as described above for the Years 3-4 level can be applied in the Year 3 Maths learning area to explore meaningful and increasingly efficient ways to record data, and representing and reporting results of investigations as follows:
Finally, the content descriptors as described above for the Years 5-6 level can be applied in the Year 5 Maths learning area to identify the best methods of presenting data to illustrate the results of investigations and justifying the choice of representations as follows:
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). 2017. F-10 Curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/curriculum/f-10?layout=1
Education World. 2011. Middle School Maths: Using Excel in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech079.shtml
Teachnology. 2013. Excel in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/excel/
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). 2017. F-10 Curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digital-technologies/curriculum/f-10?layout=1
Education World. 2011. Middle School Maths: Using Excel in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech079.shtml
Teachnology. 2013. Excel in the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/excel/