Webinars

  • Golfballs In The Yard - Using Simulation To Teach Hypothesis Testing

    Randall Pruim, Calvin College
    Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - 2:30pm ET
    One challenge in any introductory statistics course is helping our students understand the logic of hypothesis testing. In this webinar I'll demonstrate one of my favorite examples for doing this. The data are a sample of golfballs. The hypothesis is that the number on a golfball is equally like to be a 1, 2, 3, or 4. Using a function written in R, I allow students to design their own test statistics and then produce a graphical display of the sampling distribution and calculate empirical p-values. This activity can be used in introductory classes at all levels - even if you don't cover goodness-of-fit testing. It can be used as a first introduction to inference, as a motivation for the chi-squared test statistic, as an example of goodness of fit testing, or as a demonstration of simulation-based inference.
  • This Little Piggy Teaches Probability

    Stacey Hancock, Reed College; Jennifer Noll, Portland State University; Sean Simpson, Westchester Community College; and Aaron Weinberg, Ithaca College
    Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    Many instructors ask students to demonstrate the frequentist notion of probability using a simulation early in an intro stats course. Typically, the simulation involves dice or coins, which give equal (and known) probabilities. How about a simulation involving an unknown probability? This webinar discusses an experiment involving rolling (unbalanced) pigs. Since the probabilities are not equal, this experiment will also allow the instructor to have students think about the concept of fairness within games.
  • Using Your Hair To Understand Descriptive Statistics

    Tisha Hooks, Winona State University
    Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    The purpose of this webinar is to introduce an activity to enhance students' understanding of various descriptive measures. In particular, by completing this hands-on activity students will experience a visual interpretation of a mean, median, outlier, and the concept of distance-to-mean.
  • Why Not Just Take A Census?

    Carolyn Cuff, Westminster College
    Tuesday, September 28, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    Students must confront their misconceptions before we can teach them new concepts. Naively, a census is an accurate method to quantify a population parameter. A very brief, memorable and easy to implement activity demonstrates that a census is at best difficult even for a small and easily enumerated population. Exercise Documentation
  • Using the Jigsaw Method for Exam Reviews in the Introductory Statistics Classroom

    Jackie Miller, The Ohio State University
    Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    When I took a graduate course in College Teaching, I learned the jigsaw method. The jigsaw is a cooperative learning technique where students work together in a "home" group on a specific task and then are placed into "jigsaw" groups made up of one member from each home group. For example, if there are 25 students in the class, 5 students would be assigned to each of the A, B, C, D, E home groups, and each jigsaw group would each one member from A, B, C, D, and E. While in the jigsaw groups, the students teach each other what they learned in their home groups. I recall bringing the idea back with me to our elementary statistics course where it has been used successfully since 1996. Recently a graduate teaching assistant (GTA) suggested to other GTAs that this might be good in our introductory statistics course, and the activity has been adopted successfully . As structured, the jigsaw can be used in an exam review in statistics by assigning students to, say, 5 exercises that they need to master before they go to their jigsaw groups to teach others about their exercise. During this webinar, I will present how the jigsaw is done and address questions like: How do you budget your time for this class activity? How do you know that students are teaching the correct answer? How do you know that students are not just furiously writing down answers instead of listening to understand the concept? Can this work for you? By the end of the webinar, hopefully you will be as intrigued as I was to learn about the jigsaw method and will want to try it in your classroom.
  • Supporting Statistical Thinking Through a Capstone Project

    Herle McGowan, North Carolina State University
    Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    In this webinar, I will discuss the end-of-semester project that is used in North Carolina State's introductory statistics course. This project supports statistical thinking by allowing students to apply knowledge accumulated throughout the semester. Students are presented with a research question and must design and carry out an experiment, analyze the resulting data and form a conclusion over the course of several class periods.
  • Class Experiment: Introduce t-tests and more, with haiku poems

    Paul Roback, St. Olaf College
    Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    This webinar will describe an in-class activity, motivated by Case Study 1.1.1 in The Statistical Sleuth, in which students compose haiku poems about statistics. Their poems are used to introduce two-sample t-tests and randomization tests. In addition, the in-class experiment leads to good discussion about experimental design issues, where students compare our design to the actual experiment described in Amabile et al.(1985; "Motivation and Creativity: Effects of Motivational Orientation on Creative Writers", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48(2): 393-399). I use this activity on the first day of our second course in applied statistics (Statistical Modeling), but it could easily be used in an introductory course as well. Examples of haiku poems which have resulted from this activity can be found at www.causeweb.org/cwis/SPT--FullRecord.php?ResourceId=1883.
  • A Guitar Hero Based Project in Mathematical Statistics

    Ivan Ramler, St. Lawrence University
    Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    This webinar will discuss an undergraduate Mathematical Statistics course project based on the popular video game Guitar Hero. The project included: Developing an estimator to address the research objective "Are notes missed at random?" Learning bootstrapping techniques and R programming skills to conduct hypothesis tests and Evaluating the quality of the estimator(s) under certain sets of scenarios.
  • Using Games to Teach Design of Experiments

    Shonda Kuiper, Grinnell College
    Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    Educational games have had varied success in the past. However, what it means to incorporate games into the classroom has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. The goals of our games are to 1) foster a sense of engagement, 2) have a low threat of failure, 3) allow instructors to create simplified models of the world around us, and 4) motivate students to learn. This webinar will use the same reaction time game to demonstrate a simple 1- 2 day activity that is appropriate for introductory courses as well as an advanced project that encourages students to experience data analysis as it is actually practiced in multiple disciplines. In the introductory activity students are asked to spend 15 minutes playing an on-line game. Data collected from the game is used to demonstrate the importance of proper data collection and appropriate statistical analysis. The advanced project asks students to read primary literature, plan and carry out game based experiments, and present their results.
  • Using the Online Dice-Based Golf Game GOLO to Illustrate Probability

    John Gabrosek & Paul Stephenson, Grand Valley State University
    Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
    GOLO is a dice-based golf game that simulates playing a round of golf. GOLO can be used to illustrate basic probability concepts, descriptive summaries for data, discrete probability distributions, order statistics, and game theory. Participants will get a chance to play the online version of GOLO. Participants are asked to pre-register on the GOLO website. Instructions: Go to GOLO website: www.igolo.com Click on Play the Online Version Supply email address and create password

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