Lesson Plan: Approximating a Binomial Distribution Mathematics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to approximate a binomial distribution with a normal distribution.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- understand how a binomial distribution approximates to a normal distribution and the conditions under which the approximation is valid,
- use the approximation of a normal distribution to find probabilities or -values of a binomial distribution,
- solve binomial distribution approximation problems involving real-life contexts,
- calculate the percentage error when using a normal distribution to approximate a binomial distribution.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the normal distribution, including its properties, finding probabilities, -values, and unknown parameters, and standardizing using transformations,
- continuous and discrete random variables,
- the binomial distribution, including its properties, finding probabilities, -values, and unknown parameters, and finding an unknown number of trials,
- the mean and the standard deviation ,
- basic probability rules.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- using tables to calculate probabilities or -values using the normal distribution as an approximation for the binomial distribution,
- proof of the normal distribution,
- hypothesis testing related to the normal distribution.