Analyzing Oscar Winners: Characteristics and Predictions

1. The 82nd Academy Awards took place in March 2010

2. The BBC analysed all of the best actor and best actress Oscar winners and found out which characteristics occurred most frequently

3. Sandra Bullock won the best actress award for The Blind Side, an American football sports drama. Bullock was born in Virginia on 26th July 1964 and is 5’ 7½” tall The BBC also produced this graph showing the ages of all Oscar winners. Is it likely or unlikely that an actress of Bullock’s age won? Jeff Bridges won the best actor for Crazy Heart – a movie about a self destructive country and western singer. Bridges was born in Los Angeles on 4th December 1949 and is 6’ 1” tall What’s the same and what’s different about Bridges and the ‘typical’ Oscar winner?

4. Use the data from the BBC to decide which of the teachers in your school is most likely to win an Oscar!

5. Up2d8 mathsAnd the winner is… Teacher Notes

6. And the winner is… Introduction: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science held the 82nd of its annual Academy Awards ceremonies on 7 March 2010. The first of these ceremonies was held on 16 May 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, rewarding artists, directors and other personalities of the filmmaking industry. This year’s event was held at the Academy’s permanent home, the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and was hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin with an audience of nearly 43 million. This resource looks at the common characteristics of the winners of the best actor and actress awards (for example, 88% of the winners of best actor have been above average height) and poses the question – which of the teachers in your school is most likely to win an Oscar!? Content objectives: This context provides the opportunity for teachers and students to explore a number of objectives. Some that may be addressed are: • select, construct and modify, on paper and using ICT, suitable graphical representations to progress an enquiry and identify key features present in the data. • interpret results involving uncertainty and prediction • interpret graphs and diagrams and make inferences to support or cast doubt on initial conjecture. Process objectives: These will depend on the amount of freedom you allow your class with the activity. It might be worth considering how you’re going to deliver the activity and highlighting the processes that this will allow on the diagram below:

7. Activity: The activity gives students the opportunity to make and justify predictions based on probabilities from a BBC analysis of past winners of the best actor and best actress Oscar. Students are shown the results of the BBC analysis, are shown this year’s winners, and are asked to compare them to the ‘expected’ results from the analysis. Students are asked to discuss what’s the same and what’s different about this year’s best actor, Jeff Bridges, and the ‘typical’ winner and also to discuss whether it’s likely or unlikely that Sandra Bullock (born 1964) was the winner of the best actress award. You might choose to stop the activity here, maybe asking students to give a written justification of their discussions, or you might choose to continue to the final slide which poses the question ‘which of the teachers in your school is most likely to win an Oscar?!’. In answering this question students are likely to have to decide on the most important causal factors (why are 71% of male winners American?) and to balance these attributes with the characteristics of (willing!) members of the staff. Differentiation: You may decide to change the level of challenge for your group. To make the task easier you could consider: • reducing the amount of data – asking the students to explore only two or three variables • scaffolding the task – breaking the analysis into manageable chunks to focus on for short lesson episodes • providing the students with details of just three or four members of staff and asking them to justify which of these is most likely to win • asking only for an oral justification rather than a written one To make the task more complex you could consider: • giving the students free access to the data • reducing the scaffolding for the task – leaving the students to decide independently how to go about making their predictions • asking for a commentary explaining the key features of what the age graphic represents • asking for a written justification of the what’s the same and what’s different discussion • asking for a written justification of why the students have decided that one factor is more relevant than another This task offers plenty of opportunities for developing students’ skills in justifying, and this might be a priority objective for the lesson This resource is designed to be adapted to your requirements. Working in groups: This activity lends itself to paired work and small group work and, by encouraging students to work collaboratively, it is likely that you will allow them access to more of the key processes than if they were to work individually.

8. You will need to think about how your class will work on this task. Will they work in pairs, threes or larger groups? If pupils are not used to working in groups in mathematics you may wish to spend some time talking about their rules and procedures to maximise the effectiveness and engagement of pupils in group work (You may wish to look at the SNS Pedagogy and practice pack Unit 10: Guidance for groupwork). You may wish to encourage the groups to delegate different areas of responsibility to specific group members. Assessment: You may wish to consider how you will assess the task and how you will record your assessment. This could include developing the assessment criteria with your class. You might choose to focus on the content objectives or on the process objectives. You might decide that this activity lends itself to comment only marking or to student self-assessment. If you use the APP model of assessment then you might use this activity to help you in building a picture of your students’ understanding Assessment criteria to focus on might be • use their own strategies within mathematics and in applying mathematics to practical contexts (Using and Applying Mathematics level 4) • draw simple conclusions of their own and give an explanation of their reasoning (Using and Applying Mathematics level 5) • solve problems and carry through substantial tasks by breaking them into smaller, more manageable tasks, using a range of efficient techniques, methods and resources, including ICT; give solutions to an appropriate degree of accuracy (Using and Applying Mathematics level 6) Probing questions: You may wish to introduce some points into the discussion which might include: • what’s the same and what’s different about the bars on either side of the age graphic? • what other ways can you think of to show the information about age? • is it certain that a 44-year old American male of above average height with dark hair and dark eyes will win the Oscar? • what other factors might influence the chances of someone winning an Oscar? • can you rank the factors in order of importance? Why have you chosen the top factor? The bottom factor? • why are so many winners American?

9. The first slide sets the scene You will need: The PowerPoint presentation and it might be useful to print out the second slide as a worksheet. The second slide shows the graphic from the BBC website giving the results of their data analysis The third slide shows this year’s winners and asks students to compare them to the ‘typical’ winner The final slide sets the task asking ‘which of the teachers in your school is most likely to win an Oscar?!’