Resource Library

This is an e-book tutorial for R. It is organized according to the topics usually taught in an Introductory Statistics course. Topics include: Qualitative Data; Quantitative Data; Numerical Measures; Probability Distributions; Interval Estimation; Hypothesis Testing; Type II Error; Inference about Two Populations; Goodness of Fit; Analysis of Variance; Non-parametric methods; Linear Regression; and Logistic Regression.

"Availability Heuristic" is a poem by Lawrence Mark Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. The poem was originally published in the January 2017 Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. Classroom discussion the poem may spark includes comparing and contrasting mathematical and statistical roles and language for generality, looking up and discussing the meaning of the title (a phenomenon identified by Kahneman and Tversky in 1973), exploring the"someone, somewhere" idea of Utts' Seeing Through Statistics, or discussing how many people have poor intuition with the birthday problem ("probability of at least one match in the room") because they confuse it with the birthdate ("probability at least one match with ME") problem (see letters in the summer 2014 Teaching Statistics).

"A Given A" is a song that Lawrence Mark Lesser from The University of Texas of El Paso adapted from his poem "P(A|A)" that was originally published in the January 2017 Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. In addition to providing a vehicle for general discussion (about pitfalls of post hoc analysis, multiple comparisons, or confusing the direction of causation or conditioning), the song may spark particularly lively discussion with the second verse's reference to the Bible Code, popularized by Michael Drosnin's so-named books and discussed in 1994 and 1999 papers in Statistical Science.

These slides from the 2014 ICOTS workshop describe a minimal set of R commands for Introductory Statistics. Also, it describes the best way to teach them to students. There are 61 slides that start with plotting, move through modeling, and finish with randomization.

A cartoon to be used in discussing the Elevator Paradox or other elevator related probability problems. The cartoon was used in the January 2017 CAUSE cartoon caption contest. The winning caption was written by Larry Lesser at The University of Texas at El Paso, while the drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl.

A cartoon to be used for discussing the meaning of probability statements in the media such as when you hear there's a 25% chance of rain in the forecast. The cartoon was used in the July 2016 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michael Huberty from University of Minnesota., a student at Belgrade High School. The drawing was created by John Landers using an idea from Dennis Pearl. Other honorable mentions for captions that rose to the top of the judging that month included "A data set with seasonality" written by Larry Lesser from University of Texas at El Paso; "ANOVA – Analysis of Varied Atmospheres," written by Deb Sedik from Bucks County Community College: and "Variability matters!" written by Debmalya Nandy, a student at Penn State University. (to use this cartoon with an alternate caption simply download and replace the caption using a bolded comic sans font)

"Numerical Landscape" is a poem by Scottish poet Eveline Pye from Glasgow Caledonin University. The poem was originally published in the September 2011 issue of the bimonthly magazine Significance, in an article about Eveline Pye's statistical poetry. "Numerical Landscape" might be used in course discussions about probability models and the importance of recognizing the assumptions that underly them.

"The Law of Statistics" is a poem by Scottish poet Eveline Pye from Glasgow Caledonin University. The poem was originally published in the February 2016 issue of Talking Writing magazine. "The Law of Statistics" is about the case of Sally Clark, who was wrongly convicted in England of killing two of her children based on an error in "expert" testimony regarding the probability of two crib deaths in the same family. The poem might be used in course discussions about conditional probability and Bayes Theorem.

The textbook website for "Statistics: The Art & Science of Learning from Data," by Agresti, Franklin and Klingenberg, has a collection of Shiney Apps for visualizing statistical concepts. There are usable on computers, tablets and smart phones. Apps include Exploratory Analysis, Random Numbers, Association and Linear Regression, Distributions, Probabilities, Sampling distributions, Central Limit Theorem,, Inferential Methods (one and two samples), ANOVA, and Bootstrap Confidence Intervals & Permutation Tests.

The STatistics Education Web, also called STEW, is an online collection of peer-reviewed statistics lesson plans for K-12 teachers. The web site is maintained by the ASA and accessible to K-12 teachers throughout the world. Lessons cover a wide range of probability and statistics topics.