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| I win!! |
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Rock, Paper, Scissors!
I absolutely loved playing rock, paper, scissors in elementary school so when Roxanne (our college professor) told us yesterday that we were going to play it in class, I was so excited. I thought to myself, "oh I got this." We had to play 45 times in a row with a partner. I was awful at first! I couldn't concentrate on what to pick because I was keeping track of each round and counting 1, 2, 3 for when we would reveal our sign. So I blame my failure on the distractions. But as we kept playing, I got better! Over all, I won by 4 rounds! Woo Hoo! I am still a champion. On a side note, I actually played my dad later that day (winner got the cookies) I schooled him because of all of the extra practice! haha. Anyway, you are probably thinking "what does this have to do with math?" and it has everything to do with math! In this case, probability! We used this activity to find experimental probabilities and to make a tree diagram to calculate theoretical probabilities. Through experimental probability, we found that our game was very close to fair, but not perfectly fair because we almost had equal probabilities for the chances that I win, my partner wins, and a tie. (To be fair means that all the outcomes probabilities are equal). Through making a theoretical probability matrix, we found that this game is a fair game because the outcomes all have the same likelihood of happening. It was really fun to see that you can use probability for almost any game or activity!
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Fun entry. Really entertaining to read and still pertained to math. Good job.
ReplyDeleteI love how you blame your inability to do well in the beginning of the game because you were distracted with the simple task of counting to three. I'm just kidding! It was a great game and in the end you did win. Anyways, we must be great rock, paper, scissors players because our outcomes were pretty close to fair. I think that if we had played a couple more rounds, our outcomes would have been even closer to fair and the theoretical probability. All and all, it was a great day in math class. And hey, I want a re-match! One with cookies for the winner, like the game you played with your dad! :)
ReplyDeleteIt was pretty exciting to play rock, paper, scissors in class in college. I am sure no one would believe it!! This blog was very interesting. It really helps when we were learning theoretical probability. I am sure students will enjoy it. Also, the students should know what a fair or not fair game is. So it is great that you explained it!! :)
ReplyDeleteI had to keep pinching myself when we were playing rock, paper, scissors. I kept asking myself, is this really a college course? It was a really fun activity and I think it ended up being a draw. I found that probabilities can exist in almost any games. Especially if it happens to involve winning or losing. I really enjoyed reading this blog. This activity reminded me that math does not always have to be so stressful.
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ReplyDeleteThis is interesting how you explain that this game has a lot to do with math. I had lots of fun during this activity in the classroom. It is funny to say that what we did in class is play rock paper scissors but it is true. I like all your posts.
ReplyDeleteDecision Mapping is a critical-thinking approach, in which a graphical ‘map’ (most commonly in the form of a Decision tree diagram ) is drawn visually to highlight the various deliberative routes of reasoning undertaken to arrive at a certain decision.
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