Comments on: The Yellow Pages Are My PLC, Ctd.

By: MathyCathy

MathyCathy — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 14:53:17 +0000

Well done! And thanks for sharing – we are working on misleading graphs in grades 6 and 7 currently, and the first graph will be a great “What’s Wrong With This?” to start a lesson.

By: Breedeen

Breedeen — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:08:24 +0000

Jameson: One glaring error is that 33 degrees and 36 degrees are apparently on the same line of the grid.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:47:06 +0000

The issue the students had was that there were horizontal grid lines in the first picture but no scale anywhere. Starting at the bottom, it could be interpreted each line is about 10 degrees, but looking at the next plot, it goes up 3 lines or about 30 degrees not the 23 as listed. It is EXTREMELY tough to figure out what the scale of the y-axis (i.e. horizontal lines) is to help determine what the temperature was between days.

In the second graph, eliminating the horizontal lines helps to eliminate this confusion.

Though, I agree with the students, there should be a y-axis with a clearly defined scale.

By: Jameson Brown

Jameson Brown — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:06:33 +0000

I don’t get it. Just what exactly is wrong with the graphs?

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:26:17 +0000

Yeah, like the kids admit in the blog post, they’d rather have accurate scales and axes, but it’s a win, nevertheless, that Fox removed the misleading y-axis and the ambiguous intervals.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:18:39 +0000

Can we see the improved chart(s) and/or their recommendations?

If the top image is the before, and the bottom is the after, what was the improvement or change?