Applications: Using Technology to Understand the Jury Decision-making Process

Two of the recommendations of the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 1989) are to use technology to enhance teaching and learning mathematics and to relate school mathematics to the world in which the students Jive through developing and interpreting mathematical models. This article demonstrates how computer or graphing-calculator technology can be used to help students develop and interpret three increasingly realistic models of jwy behavior and explore the potential effect of such decisions as changing jury size. The only mathematics required is an understanding of simple binomial probabilities and the use of sigma, or summation, notation