Week 4 - True Blue Color Tiles Probability Lesson Plan

True Blue Color Tiles Probability Lesson Plan and Supporting Documents

This lesson requires the use of Color Tiles.

I tried this lesson with four of my eighth grade students at lunch. It is very interesting to note that their predicted probabilities did not match up with either their experimental probabilities or the theoretical probabilities. Based on the discussion that the students and I had, it became apparent that they had trouble understanding the concept of not replacing a Color Tile. In essence, if there are six tiles for the first draw then there are only five tiles for the second draw. Obviously, this caused many of the students to come up with predicted probabilities that were not close to what one would expect them to be.

On the other hand, students developed a deep understanding of the idea that as the number of trials increases the experimental probability becomes closer to the theoretical probability. This is a very important concept for students to learn because it is something that can be applied to the real world quite often. In addition, students must use this concept quite often in the scientific laboratory setting.