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This is Not Your Average Average

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Tags: averagecardsmental-math

The average is almost exclusively talked about by means of its "sum of things divided by numerous of things" formula in formal education. While this formula's use may be justified for abstract mathematics, it is not an intuitive way to mentally approximate an average of some concrete set of objects. In this video, we discuss tracking the average of a discard pile in a card game, and discuss one alternative method to consistently determine if the average of the pile is 6 (or any other fixed guess) and what card needs to be discarded to make the new average be 6.

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6.64 Overall score*

44 Rank

10 Votes

7 Comments

Comments

4.5

Nice story and topic for middle school. But I feel there was more potential here like maybe looking at it geometrically. Now that I think about this maybe John Gabriel should join SoME lol.

7.3

The problem is well motivated, and the explanation is simple and clear. Well done.

I’m a fan of the style. Neat handwriting. Synchronization of the video and separate mic work is well done. The voice and narration style reminds me of MinuteEarth videos.

One small thing that bugged me - when writing on the right side of the notebook, the pressure would move the left side of the notebook and the camera would blur that page. One example: at 12:37.

Nice twist on averaging. Totally suitable for middle-school and also bright students in elementary school. Nice motivation with the cards. Unconventionally animated with hand-writing. I can envision some direct application to a class-room activity. Some more details in this direction would have made the video clearly better than most.

Goodd

I love that this video takes two things that are approachable for elementary and middle school kids and combines them. This average formula is used plenty in these years, whilst playing cards are something that most pupils will have seen and understand. Combining the two forms a piece of mathematics that the vast majority of students will have never considered. I certainly hadn’t considered it. The video is compelling and the presentation is very clear. The only reason that I have not rated this any higher is because the application and usefulness of what is taught in the video isn’t particularly high, meaning it is likely less memorable. I feel this could have been fixed if the presenter provided a card game or trick where understanding or guessing the average may be useful to a player or magician.

5.4

It was clear why the score method was better for tracking in your head but I was not clear what the motivation was for knowing the average of a discard pile. Maybe explain why that info would be useful to track in your head?