Name: Nicholas Cook

Project Start Date: November

Title of Project: Fantasy Sports: Super Statistics
Project Completion Date: March
In 40 words or more describe your project and the steps you performed to complete
it. What did you produce or perform?
My project was taking everything about how fantasy sports and skill and luck standpoints
that I learned in writing the paper. Taking the complex data and statistics used in fantasy
sports and molding it into a fourth grade lesson plan and teaching the kids about just how
important being able to recognize and utilize data trends was. The steps I took required
securing a class to teach, creating hands on activities, and engaging the students with fun
and interesting info that they would take away from the class period. As a final
product, I was able to create a number analysis and basic statistics tri-fold with student
creations alongside the analytical side, and the kids enjoyed having that as a reference to
what they learned, and their hard work being on display.
In at least 40 words explain how the project challenged you, and what sort of time
challenges and resource problems did you encounter?
The biggest challenge in the entire process for me was finding a way to translate my
paper to a project form. Obviously, I couldnt hold a fantasy football seminar, or teach
kids how to play fantasy sports or gamble, so really finding a way to show all that I had
learned and still make a positive and LEGAL impact on a group of people was somewhat
challenging, but I really enjoyed finding that happy-medium and teaching the fourth
grade statistics class for my project. I was fortunate enough to have an abundance of
resources available to me, and using my time carefully and deliberately made the process
that much more manageable for me.
List and then describe 5-8 fundamental ideas/concepts/skills of your project, which
you learned during your project.
1. Patience The fourth graders I worked with were bright and engaging in every
regard; but not having a background in elementary education, I still needed to really
develop a greater sense of patience and cater in towards the audience in front of me.
2. Ability to Adjust Mrs. Torres (the teacher at Alanton who so graciously allotted me
teaching time) was awesome in every step of the process, the only snafu was that her
class had some standardized test to take, and so she handed me off to her switch
teacher, which didnt necessarily throw everything off, but any little change can affect
your process. I adjusted and went on like nothing had changed; because really, It
hadnt.

3. Artistic Ability In creating activities for the fourth grade class, I had to draw some
pictures and make graphs which require a level of artistic ability and left brain
advantageous details, so being able to make basic drawings and things the kids could
enjoy and learn with required a learning curve for me.
4. Audience Connection Communicating with peers and authority have been constant
for me forever, but being able to create a tone and getting the correct level of
challenge for fourth graders was a challenge that I overcame
5. Creativity Along with the artistic struggle, I tend to learn a bit more analytically and
traditionally, so being able to make a lesson plan about statistics and data for fourth
graders required me to think out of the box.

1. List and describe 5-8 problems you encountered in your project, and briefly
describe how you solved each.
1. Connecting Project with Paper wanted to have fantasy sports connect and make a
legal project (gambling), taught data to overcome
2. Being artistic creating charts and having coloring activties put me out of my
comfort zone, adjusted by being creative
3. Activity Making wanted to make interactive class, overcame by making more fun
activites, hands on as well
4. Persistence Just the ability to communicate with the fourth graders in general,
overcame by listening more closely
5. Class Switch I originally thought I was teaching Mrs. Torres class, but she had some
standardized testing, so instead I taught her switch class
Outline the process hours spent in completing the project.
Estimated total hours spent on project: 22
Estimated total steps involved in your project: 21
Date

Activity

Time

2/8

Completed first blog entry

30 minutes

2/10

Lesson Planning

1 hour

2/13

Worked on and completed

the lesson plan for class

1 hour

2/13

Talked on phone and texted

Mrs. Torres, teacher at
Alanton sponsoring lesson.
Meet with Pratt

30 minutes

Blog #2 (Weebly)
Wrote out structured time
usage in class schedule and
began making basic
slideshow and worksheet
Blog 3

30 min
2 hours

1 hour 30 min

3/2

Gathered materials like

candy and snacks, plates
etc.
Make charts, graphic
organizers to be used in
class
Blog 4

3/4

Meet with Pratt

30 min

3/5

Practicing Teaching portion,

preparing materials

1 hour

3/6

Practicing Teaching portion,

preparing materials

1 hour

3/7

Final Practice, Prepare for

class the next day

2 hours

3/8

First Class Session

1 hour 30 min

3/9

Blog 5

30 min

3/10

Make Tri-Fold data analysis

with student creations

3 hours

3/11

Second Class Session

1 hour 30min

3/15

Get and handwrite thank you

note to Mrs. Torres and the
students

2/15
2/18
2/20

2/24
2/27

2/27

30 minutes

30 min

2 hours

30 min

30 in

Materials Used:
Paper, Shoebox, crayons, markers, candy, poster boards, media, research paper, VBCPS
Lesson Plan, rulers, playing cards, dice.
List all people who helped you on the project and briefly describe the help given.
Mrs. V Senior Project Teacher, Wisdom Giver, Helped with both paper and project in
every aspect along the way.
Mr. Pratt Project Consultant, essential in reviewing lesson plans, helpful throughout the
process from idea stages to being very available and attending my project as well.
Mrs. Torres 4th Grade teacher at Alanton, very flexible in allowing me time and dates in
her classroom. Im very grateful for her allotting me the workspace. Helpful throughout.
Ben Smith and Nicholas Proztman Friends, Photographed at my class sessions, thankful
to have friends like them to help me.
Cameron Quinn Friend, Continually brainstormed and gave me great ideas along the
way, listened to my activites and offered advice and criticisms.
How does your completed project compare to the picture you had in mind when you
started the project?
Getting to the point of figuring out that Id be simplifying the complex data into a fourth
grade statistics class was a bit elongated, just because I wanted to make sure I could still
connect my paper with my project. Once I landed on the classroom session, I originally
envisioned almost exactly what I ended up presenting and doing for my project: an
elementary school statistics lesson, with the exact teacher and school I had in mind from
the proposal. I was lucky enough to have such flexible and available resources to have
my proposal make it all the way to my project unscathed.

If given the opportunity, what would you do differently now that you speak from
experience?
Make more activities and stay longer. The students were really enjoying the hands on
learning, it really made what can be a boring math subject fun for them and kept them
engaged and continually stretching their minds.

Now that the project is completed, explain/describe the stretch or challenge you
encountered/experienced.
Obviously Im not a teacher and have no background experience in elementary education,
so the stretch for me was really in the planning and creating the activites. Its hard to
compare the stretch of me going and teaching fourth graders about how they can use
statistics in everyday life to someone who raised $500 for charity or collected thousands
of books for the kids; but the skills I learned along the way and the lesson planning I had
to do and ability to create and think more artistically made this a true stretch for me.

Beyond the project itself, what did you learn about yourself?
I learned that I love interacting with younger people and just being able to create
something that is uniquely mine. I loved seeing the development from when I first
started to when I left in the kids interest in such a simple topic and idea. The adolescent
brain and ability to learn is truly amazing and I learned about my love to see the
knowledge in other people come alive.
What grade would you give yourself on the project? Justify the evaluation of your grade in
at least 25 words.
Grade: 87
Justification:
While almost everything went smoothly from lesson planning to the end, I really
wouldve loved to stretched myself just a bit more. Thats not to say I didnt have an
impact on the kids in the small amount of time I was with them, but I feel as if I couldve
certainly stretched just a bit more.