Congratulations on completing this tutorial.

We have primarily discussed four major types of graphs: pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs and scatter plots. We considered their purposes, practical ideas for constructing them, some pedagogical issues surrounding their use, ways in which graphs can be misleading, and interchangeable graphs. We also applied our understandings to a variety of educational scenarios.

We hope that you have gained some confidence and new insights about graphs and graphing. Now you are ready to use these ideas in your own projects and classes.

New understandings should enrich your instruction, whether you are studying to become a teacher or you are already teaching. Helping your students understand the purposes of graphs, when to use them, and how to construct them are important curricular goals. We hope that this tutorial will help you to realize this goal in your instruction.

This tutorial is brought to you by College of Education, Florida International University, and is made possible by financial support from Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers To Use Technology (PT3) grant. The authors are Assistant Professor Dr. Cengiz Alacaci and Dr. Scott Lewis. We thank Charlotte Slater for web site design. Please e-mail alacaci@fiu.edu with questions or comments.