Fun

  • A joke to help in recalling the purpose of Correlation and Regression. The joke was written in 2017 by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University based on a joke often told in mathematics (comparing different mathematics topics and ending with the punchline: "Geometry is where I draw the line."). Other options for comparison to regression can be similarly added to the punchline here.  For example “I’ll do prediction, I’ll do forecasting, but regression is where I draw the line,” was suggested by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso in 2025.

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  • A song about the work of British nursing pioneer and statistician Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910) that may be used in discussing the idea that important statistical methods generally arise from important real problems. The lyrics were written in 2017 by Lawrence Mark Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso and may be sung to the tune of Julie Gold's Grammy-winning song "From a Distance." The song was published in the May 2017 online issue of Amstat News (see http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2017/05/18/florence-astatistics-song/) and, with accompanying historical and educational links, in the summer 2017 newsletter of the Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences section of the American Statistical Association.

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  • A song to aid in the discussion of the meaning and interpretation of p-values and type I errors. The song's lyrics were written in 2017 by Lawrence Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso and may be sung to the tune of the 1977 Bee Gees Grammy winning hit "Stayin' Alive." The audio recording was produced by Nicolas Acedo with vocals by Erika Araujo, both students in the Commercial Music Program at The University of Texas at El Paso.

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  • A poem to develop an understanding of permutations. A question like "Why is the word importunate used in a poem about a permutation?" will help the conversation. The poem was written by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso in 2017.
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  • A poem to illustrate the dependence between trials when sampling is without replacement. To set this poem up in the classroom, you might ask the students questions like: "If I want to put the Supreme Court Justices in a random order, I can pick one at a time without replacement. Before I pick the first Justice, do I know who it's going to be? Before I pick the last Justice, do I know who it's going to be?" The poem was written in 2017 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso.
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  • A video for use in teaching about the dangers of extrapolating well beyond the range of the data in linear regression. The lyrics and Powerpoint components of the video were written by Michael Posner while the vocals were done by Reena Freedman of Villanova University and won first place in the video category of the 2017 A-mu-sing contest. The lyrics parody the song "How Far I'll Go" from the Disney animated feature film Moana (sung by Alessia Cara for the movie soundtrack).
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  • A quote to stimulate a discussion about Bayesian estimation and the relationship between the degree of ignorance about a parameter and its probability distribution. The quote is by English novelist Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880) who wrote under the pen name George Eliot. The quote is from her 1876 novel Daniel Deronda.
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  • A quote that might be used in a discussion of why uncertainty is greatest when the probability of success is close to 50% (and also amenable to more study). The quote is by American author and Professor of Psychiatry Judith M Bardwick (1933 - ) from her book Danger in the Comfort Zone (1995). The quote may also be found at www.quotationsbywomen.com
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  • A cartoon suitable for use in discussing situations where the explanatory variable has essentially no predictive power (whether the variables have a statistically significant relationship or not). The cartoon is number 1725 (August, 2016) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

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  • A cartoon suitable for use in discussing the interpretation of p-values of different levels. The cartoon is number 1478 (January, 2015) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

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