Multivariate Thinking in an Intro Stats Course – Is it Possible?

Many of our students have an intuitive sense that there is more to the story than univariate or bivariate data can tell us. We can acknowledge and encourage that habit of digging deeper by demonstrating some ways to look at additional variables. Simpson’s paradox and side-by-side scatter plots are ways to provide a glimpse of more complex analysis that are accessible to students in an introductory course with or without strong quantitative skills

The GAISE College Report: The American Statistical Association Meets Sound Pedagogy in Central Virginia

Research in undergraduate statistics education often centers on the introductory course required for a large percentage of college students. While acknowledging the diverse setting, audience, and purpose of introductory courses, existing research assumes that courses offered by different disciplines share the same goals and teaching practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the objectives for student outcomes and pedagogical delivery of introductory statistics courses in various academic departments to provide explicit evidence for this assumption. The American Statistical Association’s Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) are meant to apply to all introductory courses. The College Report’s Goals for Students and Recommendations for Teaching are used as a framework for a qualitative study of the way in which introductory courses in various settings deliver instruction. Four descriptive case studies are presented through a pattern-matching analysis followed by a cross-case analysis. All four cases demonstrate many of the goals and teaching strategies recommended by GAISE, even though none of the professors had prior knowledge of the guidelines. The goal that students be able to critique published statistics resonated with participating instructors but was barely evident in any of the courses. The recommendation to use real data had the least evidence in all cases. Emphasis on statistical literacy and thinking as well as stress on conceptual understanding aligned with GAISE in every case. This study supports the GAISE assumption that its goals for students and recommendations for teaching are broad enough to apply to introductory courses in a variety of disciplines

GAISE in Discipline-Specific Courses

While acknowledging the diverse setting, audience, and purpose of introductory courses, existing research assumes that courses offered by different disciplines share the same goals and teaching practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the objectives for student outcomes and pedagogical delivery of introductory statistics courses designed for students in a specific major, providing explicit evidence for this assumption. The American Statistical Association’s Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) are meant to apply to all introductory courses. The College Report’s Goals for Students and Recommendations for Teaching are used as a framework for a qualitative study of the way in which introductory courses in various settings deliver instruction

Formative Assessment Techniques for Online Learning

While most faculty think of assessments as used to measure learning after the fact, formative assessment classroom techniques (FACTs) give an instructor a snapshot of where students are in their learning so as to address any gaps in their understanding. Online instructors have a variety of tools at their disposal to incorporate engaging FACTs into their courses that will improve learning outcomes

Seeing and Understanding Data: A Mini-Primary Source Project for Students of Statistics

Mathematicians and scientists included drawings in their work before the first statistical graphs were invented. However, their illustrations were meant to depict quantifiable relationships rather than exposing statistical variability. The uses of pictorial representations or charts to convey trends among variable measurements dates back to at least the late 10th century. However, this means of communication did not gain the widespread appreciation it enjoys today until technological advances in the 21st century stimulated the growth of a new field, data visualization. The mini-Primary Source Project (PSP) Seeing and Understanding Data provides students the opportunity to explore the evolution of statistical graphs and visual displays across time and to think critically about how data are displayed and interpreted

Seeing and Understanding Data

Visual displays of data are commonly used today in media reports online or in print. For example, data visualizations are sometimes used as a marketing tool to convince people to purchase a certain product, or they are displayed in articles or magazines as a way to graphically display data to emphasize a certain point. In general, it is hard to imagine the majority of disciplines in science and mathematics not using data visualizations. However, before standard data visualization techniques were developed (and accepted by the community), mathematicians and scientists very rarely used graphical displays or pictures to represent empirical data

Implementing the Common Core’s Promise of Bringing Statistical Curricula into Line with Recommendations of NCTM, MAA, & GAISE

We plan to make a case for the necessity of GAISE-aligned college courses in order to prepare future teachers to teach in Common Core K-12 classrooms. Beginning with an overview of the parallel evolutions of Cobb/MAA suggestions - GAISE recommendations for teaching and NCTM process standards - Common Core mathematical practices, we will emphasize that we should be modeling what researchers continually conclude are best practices for teaching/learning across the K-16 continuum. We will provide some examples to illustrate classroom tasks that satisfy both GAISE and Common Core and hope to generate some discussion of other activities already used by conference attendees that meet the same criteria

Differentiation of effects of two pesticides upon Urosalpinx cinerea Say from the Eastern Shore of Virginia

Adult Urosalpinx were exposed to various combinations of two pesticides ( Sevin , a methyl carbamate, and Polystream , a mixture of chlorinated benzenes) recommended for oyster predator control by the Milford Biological Laboratory of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Concentrations used were within the recommended range, and the field procedure suggested was modified by us for application in laboratory trays. Under controlled laboratory conditions, Polystream used alone killed half the animals within a period of 5. 5 to 6.8 days. The use of Sevin, which is highly toxic in crustaceans, is therefore questionable

Leveraging Interdisciplinary Expertise in Developing an Alternative Mathematics Pathway

How many instructors does it take for amazing course design? Or perhaps we should begin with “A mathematician, humanist, communication expert and statistician walk into a bar.” This unlikely team has co-developed a pair of courses, Learning to Reason I: Art and Quotient and Learning to Reason II: Commerce and Flux, that deeply investigate quantitative reasoning from multiple perspectives. Blending elements of rhetoric, logic, and history with mathematical computation, representation, and application breaks through the perceived barriers between the unyielding, obstinate world of mathematics and the ambiguous, equivocal world of the humanities. Developing the courses as an interdisciplinary team of mathematicians and humanists has brought together multiple ways of reasoning and habits of mind that present students with experiences in critical thinking involving both numbers and words. These innovative courses investigate such diverse topics as the history of mathematics, ethics and statistics, mathematical art, logical fallacies, fun with spreadsheets, personal economics, communicating quantitatively, and even origami. These courses also provide an alternative mathematics pathway for students in our programs for which calculus is not required. This paper will examine this unique interdisciplinary course development experience that uses an asynchronous online modality to deliver content to students around the world

Instructional Efficiency in Asynchronous Online Discussions

Cognitive load mitigation strategies & community of inquiry framework are not discipline specific