| 3 | <p>“Figure of the Day” is a clever approach to help students learn to interpret graphs that avoids inducing anxiety in students by establishing from the outset that students will not have all the information necessary to be 100% correct. Graphs are presented without axes labels or legends, and interpretation is turned into a puzzle, where any observation about the data is potentially helpful. What results is that students look much more carefully at all the details of a graph - the colors, sizes, shapes, arrangement, magnitude, and try to piece together a story. This is exactly what experienced scientists do, much more often than starting with a figure legend, for example. Different students will notice different features, and the value of multiple student voices is often really evident - small groups or a class can together often uncover the meaning of a graph even without the axes labels!</p>
| 3 | <p>Each week (same day of the week ideally so students expect it and it becomes part of their routine), the figure of the week is projected at the very beginning of class. Students were told to brainstorm with their neighbors for the first 5 minutes or so. Things that they were told to look for were types of variables (explanatory vs. response variables, categorical vs. numerical variables, etc.) and any clues about what those variables might be (values of the response variables or other clues). After students had a few minutes to brainstorm, I solicited responses from the class. A student's response may be an observation, which you can ask them elaborate on. Or a student's response may be a prediction (i.e. "I think the x-axis might represent time"), in which case you might ask them to explain why they made that guess/prediction. It is better not to tell students they are right/wrong, and it is important to emphasize (especially at the beginning of the semester when the activity is still new) that the idea is not necessarily to get to the right answer as a class, but look for clues and try to reason out ideas. If students are especially quite or get stuck, you might prompt them a bit more specifically (i.e. "Who notices something about the x-axis?"). </p>
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