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Run an Illustrative Mathematics Grade 6 lesson

Walk through a sample Illustrative Mathematics Grade 6 lesson on constructing box plots, with Tuva used to build the plots.

How-to guide Teaching with Tuva

Last reviewed: November 2020

Grade 6: Introduction to Creating a Box Plot

Lesson Topic: Constructing a Box Plot (IM Grade 6 Unit 8 Lesson 16)

Objective:

Students will be able to:

  1. Construct a box plot for a set of data by dividing the data set into quartiles
  2. Know what information a box plot shows and how it is constructed

Time Required: 75 minutes

Materials Needed:

  • Teacher computer with internet access
  • 1 computer/laptop per student with internet access
  • Student Handouts from IM Lesson

Teacher Preparation:

Engage (15 minutes):

  1. Launch the Notice and Wonder warm-up from the IM lesson (the puppy weights table). Tuva’s own “Notice and Wonder: Puppy Weights” activity is no longer in the library; another Notice and Wonder data story, such as “Notice and Wonder: New York City’s Squirrels”, works for the same routine. Give students independent “think time” to collect or write down thoughts.
  2. Class discussion might focus on which weights are most common, the range of the weights, or the organization of the weights in the table.
  3. Prompting questions to students might focus on other ways that the data could be presented or organized or other questions we might want to know about the data.

Explore (30 minutes):

  1. Students open the Tuva Graphing Life Expectancy: Dot-to-Box Plot
  2. Students work through the activity independently receiving formative assessment feedback through the auto-graded features.
  3. Pause student activity where students get stuck or confused to discuss as a whole class.
  4. Assist students as needed to reach the final step of drawing the box plot.

Explain (10 minutes):

  1. Project final step of Tuva activity with the box plot drawn on the board.
  2. Go through the names of each of the important numbers in the five-number summary of the box plot and discuss the method that students used to find those values (cutting the data in half and then into quartiles).
  3. Go back through the steps of the activity as needed to make sure students can explain the process used.
  4. As a class, determine the interquartile range (IQR) of the box plot and discuss what that number tells us about the life expectancy.
  5. If time allows, discuss what information can be seen in the box plot that wasn’t as obvious in the dot plot.

Elaborate (15 minutes):

  1. Students complete the Lesson 16 Practice Problems independently or with a partner.
  2. Review the problems as a whole class, focusing on common misconceptions.

Evaluate (5 minutes):

  1. After reviewing the practice problems, have students answer the following wrap-up questions:
    1. What is one piece of information that we can find from looking at a box plot?
    2. What is one important difference between a box plot and a dot plot?
  2. Collect student work on practice problems as needed.

Additional Lesson Strategies:

  • Pause students as needed during the Tuva activity to model how to use the tools if students are struggling with that.
  • Leave the work from the Explore/Explain on the board so that students can refer to it as they work on the practice problems.

The activity you assign

Section titled “The activity you assign”

Search the content library for “Dot-to-Box” to find the activity, then use Assign to give it to your class (see preview and assign an activity).

The content library's search results for "Dot-to-Box", showing Graphing Life Expectancy: Dot-to-Box Plot

The Graphing Life Expectancy: Dot-to-Box Plot activity page, with Assign, Teacher Preview and Student Preview

For the Engage step, a search for “Notice and Wonder” lists the data stories you can launch.

The content library's search results for "Notice and Wonder"

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