Webinars

As part of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI), Carnegie Mellon University was funded to develop a web-based introductory statistics course, openly and freely available to individual online students so they could learn effectively without an instructor. In practice, this course is often used in "blended" mode, i.e., to complement face-to-face classroom instruction. In this webinar, we will demonstrate how students interact with the course and how the different activities were designed to provide pedagogical scaffolding. We will then discuss ways in which instructors have used the online course to support their teaching and provide a demonstration of the Instructor's Learning Dashboard, a tool which continuously provides detailed feedback on students' learning and progress. We will conclude by summarizing a set of studies in which we assessed the online course's effectiveness in blended mode. Unfortunately, this webinar was not recorded due to a technical problem. We apologize.

Do some PreK-12 teachers lack confidence to teach confidence? What are PreK-12 teachers' "Core" beliefs about being able to teach statistics? We will present the development and validation phases of two instruments designed to measure a teacher's self-efficacy to teach statistics: one for middle school grades and one for high school grades. The implementation of the Common Core State Standards has changed the landscape of pre-service teacher education as well as professional development as teachers are called on to teach statistics material that may not have been part of their education. The Self-Efficacy to Teach Statistics (SETS) instruments are aligned with key concepts of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) and the PreK-12 GAISE. We will discuss potential and current uses of these instruments, including research, assessment, and analysis of need for professional development programs. This discussion will include the current use of the SETS instruments in research regarding pre-service teachers and in a state-wide professional development program for in-service teachers. At the end of the presentation, we will seek the opportunity to discuss ideas for use of the instruments with audience members, including teacher educators, professional developers, education researchers, and other interested parties.

A pedagogical approach is presented that emphasizes the importance of competence in statistics for a successful business career. Statistical methods are introduced in a framework that stresses problem formulation, application of appropriate statistical techniques, and interpretation of results in the business context. Classroom activities and assignments are designed to motivate students using relevant business problems and data. Statistical methods are connected to concepts from other courses in the business curriculum. Several examples of these applications will be presented during this webinar along with icebreakers for motivating statistical concepts. Finally, future challenges in statistics education in the business curriculum will be discussed.

Teaching several semesters of classes where all students in the class have a learning disability has offered me a unique perspective on how some LD students learn statistics. I have found that some students seem to "see" statistics problems differently than the average student. In this webinar, I will share with you some tips on how to show your LD students how to read statistics problems more effectively to help them overcome their learning disability.

The Statistics Education Research Journal (SERJ) publishes high quality research related to the teaching and learning of statistics. Bob delMas, co-Editor of SERJ, will present characteristics of manuscripts that tend to result in published articles, as well as point out critical flaws that can keep a manuscript from being published in SERJ. Ample time will be provided for the audience to ask questions of the co-Editor.

After teaching the concepts of statistics and statistical reasoning for almost twenty-five years I became convinced that my lecture-recitation format was inefficient and maybe even counter-productive with respect to student learning. Throw in an excruciating self reflection focused on "what do my students really need me for anyway?" and it quickly became clear that my style and my classroom needed some kind of substantive change. The result was the development of an inverted classroom environment where traditional lecture material is off-loaded as mp4 files, the classroom is used for discovery and discussion, and the recitations are better tailored to the deductive abilities of new TAs. In this presentation we will demonstrate some of what we are doing here at the University of Kentucky in a course that serves approximately 4200 students in a calendar year. We will be sure to point out the things that may not be working that well, in addition to those that are. Questions to Think About Assuming you teach an introductory conceptual statistics course in a lecture/recitation format with TAs in charge of the recitations: Do you use first-year TAs in your recitations? If so, do they have difficulties with appropriately handling conceptual questions and demonstrations? Have you ever thought about what things you say and do in the "lecture" that are truly essential for you to say and do? Are these things that reflect the depth of your knowledge and experience in the field of statistics?

We discuss how and why we now use simulation methods (bootstrapping and randomization) to introduce fundamental topics of inference (intervals and tests) in an introductory statistics course. We describe ways to make these methods accessible early in the course, demonstrate new user-friendly applets for teaching and using these methods, and discuss some of our experiences with using this approach.

This webinar will discuss the presenters' experiences conducting research with collaborators at several different institutions. Both presenters have in the CAUSE research cluster program for more than two years. This NSF funded program brings together statistics educators earlier in their career for the purposes of research. We will discuss some literature that suggests collaborations have a better chance of publication, the difficulties and the rewards of cross institutional research based on our own experiences and how clusters' view of the research process has changed over these past two years.

This webinar will present the tutorials, applets, and other resources available on the Web Interface for Statistics Education project (wise.cgu.edu). Following an overview of WISE resources, we will demonstrate and discuss how instructors can use interactive applets to help students gain a better intuitive understanding of fundamental concepts like sampling distributions and statistical power. The webinar will conclude with a demonstration of a mini-lecture on statistical power, using an interactive applet to show how statistical power, sample size, effect size, and alpha error rate are interrelated. Student handouts and exercises will be provided.

Some of the challenges that we face teaching introductory statistics are the students' fear of mathematics and negative perceptions of the subject that they bring with them as enter the classroom. In an attempt to change these negative associations we have begun teaching theme-based introductory statistics courses that emphasize reading and writing integrated with the usual emphasis on quantitative reasoning. In this presentation we will discuss how using a central theme and incorporating reading and writing has affected both the way we teach the course and the experience that the students have.