Weighted Averages

  As part of my animation class, my students are learning about weighted averages.  Many of the students in the animation class struggle with math.  They don't all know their multiplication tables, they find doing regular problems but as part of the class, they have to understand weighted averages.

I started class by showing students how grades are calculated if the teacher has chosen to weighted averages.  I do and I know many high school teachers who do it.

Several students are athletes at school.  They know they must have a 2.0 or higher in order to travel but they had no idea how their grade point average was calculated.  They found it informative when i showed them.  I also explained how finding a college grade point average differed from the high school average.

These three examples are ones they are familiar with.  I took them outside of their area of knowledge to look at average balances or average sales per day in a month.  I brought up the idea that one of the students owned a business showing others how to set up an MMA fight in their town.  A few eyes brightened because two students are into MMA.

I talked about one of them creating a business where he teaches others to set up and run MMA fights in their location.  I made up some numbers like he earned $700 per day for 15 days, $1500 each day for 2 days and $800 per day for 13 days.  I lead them through calculating the daily average and pointed out the monthly income from this venture.

A few students looked stunned at the idea that creating a product they sold to others so others could do something on their own. This idea of creating a product to sell to others is beyond something they have ever thought of.  It is something that can be done from a remote village so they do not have to leave.

The village is pretty much accessible only by plane if they want to get to Anchorage.  I showed them the same math could be used to determine the average number of passengers carried per month or per year for the local airline.  Then I changed it to their bank account to find the daily average balance and daily average credit card balance using the weighted average. 

It was fantastic.  This was one of the first topics I had no trouble finding lots of examples that use weighted averages.  I loved it.

Now for a quick question to all my readers.  I am thinking of creating a series of lessons helping people create math videos using green screening techniques.  How many might be interested in this type of information?.  Please let me know.  Thank you.