MAT 223 - Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics 3

4 credit hours - Three hours weekly; one term.
This course meets the Mathematics General Education Requirement

Primarily for students in the elementary education program.  Topics include data collection, sampling, interpreting data, displaying data, correlation and regression, distributions, confidence intervals, probability, and the use of technology.  Principles and standards of national mathematics organizations are applied to probability and statistics.

Prerequisite(s): MAT 221  or MAT 222   or equivalent

Note: Credit is not given for both MAT 223 and MAT 135 . Typically offered at MC and OL; fall and spring terms.

Course Outcomes:
Course Outcomes

• Uses the techniques of descriptive statistics to collect and organize data, create and interpret graphs, and compute statistics.
  • Designs and carries out a survey or experiment.
  • Given a set of raw data, produces a frequency table, histogram, boxplot, or scatterplot.
  • Interprets any of the above graphs.
  • Computes measures of center for a set of data.
  • Computes measures of variation for a set of data.
  • Describes the relative standing of a data value within the entire data set.
  • Computes and interprets the correlation coefficient for bivariate data.
• Applies probability theory in specific contexts.
  • Calculates the probability of simple and compound events.
  • Solves a probability question by applying the appropriate statistical distribution, including the normal distribution.
  • Applies the Central Limit Theorem to solve problems about the sampling distribution of the mean.
• Uses the techniques of inferential statistics to construct confidence intervals and conduct hypothesis tests.
  • Constructs a confidence interval for a population mean or proportion.
  • Interprets a confidence interval.
  • Conducts a hypothesis test of a population mean.
  • Interprets the P-value of a hypothesis test.
• Uses technology to enter, display, and analyze data.
  • Uses technology to enter data.
  • Uses technology to display data graphically.
  • Uses technology to compute descriptive statistics.
  • Uses technology to construct confidence intervals and generate P-values.
• Evaluates the validity of educational statistics as presented in a journal article.
  • Identifies where statistics were properly used in an article.
  • Analyzes how the data was collected.
  • Evaluates the repeatability of the experiment.
  • Writes a description of how the experiment could be improved.
  • Evaluates whether the principles of national mathematics organizations are met in an experiment.
• Improves skills needed to teach elementary school mathematics.
  • Evaluates the merits and limitations of education research articles from a statistical point of view.
  • Organizes, summarizes, graphs, and describes a data set.
  • Uses technology appropriately to aid in problem solving and in checking conjectures.
  • Gains confidence in solving mathematical problems