Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes – Part A: Introduction – A Gift Or A Right?
30+ minutes – Part B: Creating A Survey
35 minutes – Part C: Explaining The Data
10 minutes – Part D: Increasing Opportunities
5 minutes – Reflection

Part A: Introduction – A Gift Or A Right?

Step 1.

Introduce the lesson by watching Henry’s Story from the Dying to Live documentary as a class. Explain to students to take note of what they see, feel, wonder and think about his story and situation.

Dying to Live: Henry's Story (https://youtu.be/dpbwaVzVkFY)

Step 2.

After watching Henry’s Story, ask students to respond to the SEE, THINK, WONDER, and FEEL questions below (also in the Student Worksheet).

What did you SEE in the clip?
What does the clip make you THINK?
What does the clip make you WONDER?
What does the clip make you FEEL?

Allow enough time for students to write a response for each question, then encourage them to discuss their ideas in pairs or with the class.

Step 3.

Hand out a copy of the news article titled “Not all doctors agree my patient deserved his kidney transplant. They’re wrong.”. You can choose to have the class read the entire article, or just read the first two sections (up to but not including "Road to transplant a ‘maze’").

As there are many news articles relating to organ and tissue donation and transplantation, select articles that will get your student's attention. Choosing articles relevant to the world that students live in, can help keep them interested and engaged.

Step 4.

Draw students' attention to the Australian guideline for being accepted onto the organ transplant waiting list that requires patients to have "an anticipated 80% likelihood of survival five years post transplant”. Invite students to consider how you think the following groups of people might feel about the "80% likelihood of survival five years post transplant" waiting list condition and write their responses in the Student Worksheet.

People who have not been approved for a transplant.
Doctors and transplant surgeons.
The family of a deceased donor.
A person who wishes to donate their organs.
People who have been approved for a transplant.

Facilitate a class discussion on the how different groups and people may view the '80% survival' condition. Then ask students to share their personal view with a partner before having the opportunity of sharing with the class.

Part B: Creating A Survey

Step 1.

Explain to your class that they will now work together to produce a class survey that will aim to collect general public opinion on who should receive transplants. This data will be used to create box and whisker plots which will be analysed to identify trends in responses.

To build the survey, students will share their ideas to develop class questions addressing one or more of the following statements:

Long term survival is more important than just survival.
It is reasonable to expect people from remote areas to move to urban areas if they want to be considered for an organ transplant.
It is fair to have an '80% chance of long term survival' condition, knowing that this may make some minority groups ineligible.
Given the scarcity of organs, it is fair to have eligibility conditions based on survival.

Step 2.

To create a range of questions, first distribute sticky notes to all students. Give students 2–3 minutes on their own to brainstorm as many questions as they can, using the statements as a starting point. Invite students to write each question or idea on a sticky note so ideas can be shared.

Step 3.

Allow another 2–3 minutes for students to share their sticky note ideas in small groups. Invite students to categorise their sticky notes into like questions. The four statements used as prompts could also be a way of organising student ideas. Encourage each group to make up survey questions based on their sticky notes and discussions.

Step 4.

Write the four statements used as prompts onto the board. Bring the class back together, with each group given the opportunity to share their suggested survey questions. As students suggest their questions, either write them on the board or collect their sticky notes and arrange them with like questions.

Step 5.

Workshop the suggested survey questions until the class is happy with the ones selected. Remind students that the survey can be short with just 2 or 3 questions, but it must use numerical responses to gauge responses (see example below). It is also important that students are able to survey different age groups so they can make comparisons later.

The creation of an electronic survey (eg. GoogleForms, SurveyMonkey) may make it easier to gather data from different age groups and viewpoints. Electronic data collation in spreadsheets can also make it easier when developing data tables and using formulas to calculate statistical information.

Step 6.

On completion of the survey questions, instruct your class to begin collecting survey responses. To do this effectively, ensure your students provide some explanation about the issue, either as an introductory paragraph or a brief script to be read to each survey participant.

To ensure the data collection process does not interrupt the running of other classes, it may help to organise a pool of teachers willing willing to take part in the survey. This will allow for different age demographics to be surveyed in a short amount of time.

Part C: Explaining The Data

Step 1.

Once your class has finished collecting survey responses, encourage students to pool their data. You could help them to do this by allowing them to photograph or photocopy summary sheets, or collating responses electronically and sharing the file with students.

Step 2.

Explain to students that they will need to develop 5-number summaries in their workbooks and calculate the interquartile range for each question, according to age group (i.e. 5-number summaries for each age group, for each question). More details about 5-number summaries can be found in the Representing and Comparing Data Factsheet.

To complete this task quickly, you could split your class into groups and have each group work on a different 5-number summary and write all responses on the board.

The 5-number summaries for each question could be set out like this:

Question 1	Age Group: _______	Age Group: _______	Age Group: _______	Age Group: _______	Age Group: _______
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Range:
Interquartile Range:

Step 3.

Once the 5-number summaries are completed, instruct students to develop comparative box and whisker plots for each survey question in their workbooks (i.e. each question will have several box plots representing each age group, on the same scale for comparison). Ensure students are using an appropriate common scale for all box plots so that comparisons can be made later. More details about creating box and whisker plots can be found in the Representing Data Factsheet.

Step 4.

Now ask your class to analyse their data to determine trends in the views of the general public – within and across different age groups – on the issue, as shown by their sample. Instruct students to write a brief summary under their box and whisker plots that evaluates their responses collected against their survey questions.

The following questions may help students to determine overall trends:

To what extent are Australians in favour of survival conditions for organ eligibility?
Are there any particular age groups whose opinions contrast with other groups?
Is there a general trend of opinions changing with age? If yes, what are these changes and why do you think they may be?
What do you feel is the general public opinion for this issue? Why do you think this might be?

Part D: Increasing Opportunities

Step 1.

Now students have investigated a real issue concerning transplant eligibility, read out or project the following statement:

Ask students to share their initial reaction to the statement. Explain to your class that although there is no simple solution to achieving equal access to organ transplants for all Australians, increasing the rate of organ donations may increase opportunities. Allow students to discuss their ideas and thoughts on this topic either in a pair or with the class.

Step 2.

Project the DonateLife ‘2017 Organ Donation and Transplantation Outcomes’ Factsheet on the board or provide students with a copy.

Step 3.

In pairs, ask students to examine the graphs and information and explain what they think the data is suggesting.
From their interpretations, facilitate a class discussion to decide, mathematically, whether increased donation rates might lead to greater opportunity. Students should be able to:

Recognise that both graphs show an increasing trend (i.e. the number of donations is increasing by year, and the number of people receiving transplants is increasing too).
Transplantation rates depend on donation rates increasing.
There are many more transplants than donations, which indicates that organs and tissues from one person can be used in multiple transplant procedures.
If donation rate continues to grow, more tissues and organs will become available for transplants.

Note: It is important to remind students that these mathematical quantitative figures exist in a complex social, cultural, economic, political and emotional context.

Reflection

From the information presented in the lesson and students' own understandings of organ and tissue donation, ask students to complete the Headlines visible thinking routine. Explain to students that they will now write a headline that captures what they feel is the most important aspect that should be remembered from the lesson. Give students a few minutes to write their response on their Student Worksheet.

Once all students have attempted their headline, invite students to share their headline with the person sitting next to them. Then ask if anyone heard an interesting headline that sums up the important aspects of the lesson and to share it with the class.

You might also like to inform your class that Henry did receive a cornea transplant, is continuing to live within his community and has resumed painting.

Differentiated Learning

Extension – To extend this class, students could conduct more graphical analysis using the fact sheets from Part C. Students could also conduct further research to determine why the donation rates in other countries, particular those who do not have long term survival conditions, are higher than Australian rates and prepare a summary about whether the 80% long term survival condition is a necessary requirement for transplant recipients, given low donation rates.

Provisions for Learning Support – If students in your class are not confident in creating their own survey questions, you may choose to use the example survey questions or create your own for the class to use. You may also choose to provide students with the scale for the creation of their box and whisker plots.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Dying to Live - Surveying For Trends

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