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Solving Problems with Spreadsheet

Models

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Teacher’s notes included in the Notes Page

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Icons key: For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation

Functional Skills check

Student task accompanies this slide Printable activity

This lesson will cover:

Using spreadsheet models to assist with assessment.

Financial forecasting.

Using Goal Seek to reduce queues.

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Case study: assessment

A teacher has been looking at the marks for her class and wondering how to improve their results. She has set a target grade for each of her students; some have reached it and some have not.

Her students have been working on 4 different modules. They can resit one of those modules in the final session.

She needs to decide which module each student should resit. The extra revision is likely to improve their marks, but she is not sure by how much.

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The rules

Mark Grade

A* 320

A 280

B 240

C 200

D 160

E 120

If a student resits a module, the highest mark counts

Each module is marked out of 100

At the end of the course, the best mark for each module is added up to form a total

You need these marks for each grade.

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Pick a function

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Meeting targets

Now she has the totals, the teacher wants to know which students have met their target scores.

An IF function will compare the two values and give a message based on any rule she chooses.

The message will say “below target” if the student did not get their target points.

In this case she will set up a message that says “met target” if the student got their target mark or better.

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Conditional formatting

Another way of showing how well the students perform is called conditional formatting.

This changes the way the cell looks depending on a rule the teacher sets. In this case, she has chosen to colour cells like this:

Better than target – greenMet target – yellowLower than target – red

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Looking up the grades

Mark Grade

120 E

160 D

200 C

240 B

280 A

320 A *

Remember the table of grades? How do we find a grade from it?

We take the mark the student got, and find it in the first column. We then write down the mark from the second column

Raj got 241 points. What grade did she get?

241 is over the B threshold but not enough for an A, so she got a B.

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VLOOKUP

Spreadsheets can speed up this process by using the VLOOKUP function.

Look up the mark in H2 in the table called gradesGive the answer from column 2

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Counting up the grades

The column with the grades in.

The grade we are counting.

The teacher wants to know how many students got each grade.

We can use a COUNTIF function to do that:

=COUNTIF($I$2:$I$8,"E")

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Modelling

Now the teacher has set up the rules, she can experiment with the values to find the best way to increase the overall grades.

She can ask questions such as “What if all students got ten more marks in Module 3?”

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Financial forecasting

Changing data in a spreadsheet allows you to model theeffect of altering different variables.

For example, a fashion company has decided to put on a fashion show. They have added up all their costs andrevenues and put them into a spreadsheet.

On their first projectionit looks like they will make a big loss.

There are savingsavailable to cover thisbut they still want to make a profit.

Look at the next slide and decide what they could alter.

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Changing variables

Fashion show budget

Available savings £5,000

Costs RevenueVenue hire £1,200 Venue capacity 500Catwalk construction £799 Number of non-paying guests 150Model's Wages £1,099 Number of paying guests 200 EstimateTransport of outfits £80 Ticket Price £9Music £250Drinks & Snacks £800 Ticket money £1,800 EstimatePosters & Marketing £1,000 Sponsorship payments £2,500Security £550Cleaning £150

Total Costs £5,928 Total Revenue £4,300

Total Profit -£1,628

Some factors would be fixed costs. But other variables canbe changed.

What could you alter to make an estimated profit?

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Case study: the supermarket