Resource Library

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer. This is a quote by German Physicist Max Planck (1858 - 1947). The quote (translated into English in the book "Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers" page 110 (1949)

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting "Field with Flowers" by Vincent Willem van Gogh (1883) with the statistical caption "Experimental Design, decades before Fisher." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting "Mont Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne (1898) with the statistical caption "A skewed distribution, but the same mountain (always look at things from different angles)." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

June 23, 2009 Activity webinar presented and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Otterbein College. This webinar describes an activity that uses the playlist from an iPod music player to teach the concept of random selection, the various sampling techniques, and the use of simulation to estimate probability. The webinar includes a discussion of the background of this activity, the learning goals of the activity, how this activity can be adapted to different levels of technology, suggestions for assessment, and other supplemental reference materials. (handouts and other materials available for free download)

May 26, 2009 Activity webinar presented by Dennis Pearl, The Ohio State Unversity, and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Otterbein College. This webinar describes a computer lab activity using the Flash-based applet at www.causeweb.org/mouse_experiment to teach key principles regarding the value of random assignment. These include: 1) how it helps to eliminate bias when compared with a haphazard assignment process, 2) how it leads to a consistent pattern of results when repeated, and 3) how it makes the question of statistical significance interesting since differences between groups are either from treatment or by the luck of the draw. In this webinar, the activity is demonstrated along with a discussion of goals, context, background materials, class handouts, and assessments.

Always expect to find at least one error when you proofread your own statistics. If you don't, you are probably making the same mistake twice. Quote of american demographer Cheryl Russell appearing in "Rules of Thumb" by Tom Parker (Houghton Mifflin, 1983) p. 124. Also to be found in "Statistically Speaking the dictionary of quotations" compiled by Carl Gaither and Alma Cavazos-Gaither p. 81

A cartoon that might be used in introducing scatterplots and correlation. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea from Dennis Pearl (The Ohio State University). Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.

The AIMS project developed lesson plans and activities based on innovative materials that have been produced in the past few years for introductory statistics courses. These lesson plans and student activity guides were developed to help transform an introductory statistics course into one that is aligned with the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) for teaching introductory statistics courses. The lessons build on implications from educational research and also involve students in small and large group discussion, computer explorations, and hands-on activities.

This pdf text file gives a short introduction to the methods of Bayesian inference. It gives a simple example that deals with jumping a paper frog. The topics listed in this document include: An example, comparison of frequentist and Bayesian methods, credible vs. confidence intervals, choice of prior and its effect on the posterior distribution.

A series of 19 songs used to teach Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) by Alan Reifman of Texas Tech University. A video of an in-class performance of the musical on April 27, 2007, is also available at the website. The Musical took second place in the 2007 A-Mu-sing competition.