Workshop on Teaching Introductory Statistics

Session 2b: Planning the Use of Activities

Roger Woodard, North Carolina State University

Ginger Holmes Rowell, Middle Tennessee State University

Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee

July 10th, 2006

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Planning the Use

What things should we consider?

Recall from session 1: What do we want them to actually learn? Be sure students will see these things.

What other things?

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What do we want them to learn?

Learning Objectives Spell out what you want students to

learn. Should be action based, not general.

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Examples: Explain the meaning of confidence and

confidence level.

Calculate confidence intervals for mean from a simple random sample using the formula:

*s

x tn

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Learning Objectives List of learning objectives for

introductory statistics. CAUSEweb: Search for Learning

Objectives.

Writing your own Try using Blooms taxonomy.

Levels of thought Be action-oriented. Avoid words like know or understand.

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Context

How does it fit with other things students know? What other things should students know? Do they need reminders?

Example: Perhaps start a confidence interval

activity with a review of using the normal distribution.

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Mechanics

What will they do to learn this? Will they work in groups or alone? Will they collect data? Do they need equipment or materials? How will you speed up the slow

students?

What specific things MUST they do to get the point?

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Variety How many levels of thinking will be

included? Simple application of techniques. Making conclusions. Evaluating based on evidence.

Try to begin with some basics as a warm-up Students don’t feel overwhelmed.

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Summary How will the learning be made

concrete? Students put together what they should

know. What should they put in their notes?

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Summary

This step helps students fit the new information in with previous knowledge. Consider asking students to summarize

their knowledge in writing. For in-class demos, be sure to include a

summary for their notes.

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Follow-up

How will you come back to this and make the learning important? What they learn should be brought back

when possible. Tie topics together.

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Follow-up

Students value what they are tested over. Students should be exposed to

assessment.

Consider providing a practice problem as part of the activity. If several levels of learning are used

include several problems

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Follow-up

In planning a course, consider giving the students a complete list of the objectives with ties to specific problems and activities.

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Coin Date Example Learning objectives: What do you want the

students to learn? Define a “Sampling Distribution.” Explain why the distribution of the sample

averages is less varied than the distribution of the individuals from which they are calculated.

Explain that even if the population is very skewed the average from a large random sample will be normally distributed.

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Coin Date Example

Context: How does this fit with other things students know? Students have calculated the mean. Students have seen distributions of

many shapes.

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Coin Date Example Mechanics: What will they do to learn this?

Students should bring 10 coins to class; some extra coins should be brought.

Students will work in groups of 3 on a worksheet. Worksheets should be pre-numbered to facilitate calling on the groups.

Students will need a calculator. As the students are calculating their averages the

instructor should prepare a histogram on the board or a transparency. Alternatively, you can use Post-It notes to make a Post-It note histogram.

After a discussion of the histograms, the instructor will use the online demo to simulate many sampling distributions.

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Coin Date Example

Variety: How many levels of thinking will be included? Students will need to think abstractly

about the shape of the distributions of the date of coins.

Students will do some very basic calculations.

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Coin Date Example Summary: How will the learning be made

concrete? A summary slide will be used at the end of

the activity where students are asked as a group to fill in the following

A sample mean from a sample of N= ____ is less varied than the Parent Population but more varied than sample mean from a sample of N = ___.

Even if a parent population’s distribution is _________ the distribution of the sample mean is _______ and becomes more so as the sample size _________.

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Coin Date Example Follow-up: How will you come back to this

and make the learning important? The next lecture will bring this back when we

talk about calculations with the central limit theorem.

Students will be asked a question on the online quiz about this topic.

The applet will be used again when beginning the discussion of the ideas of confidence intervals and hypothesis testing.

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Where do I get the time?

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Where do I get the time?

Better understanding of a few topics replaces pure bulk of material. Move less vital examples to homework or

other independent study.

Reduce time required for note taking. Use guided note outlines.

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Your turn

Take some time to plan how you will use the resources you have found.

Fill out the planning worksheet.

We will discuss the results when you have finished.