By Brad Bailey (University of North Georgia)
Information
Banana Ball is fun, fast-paced variation of traditional baseball invented by the Savannah Banana's baseball team. By visiting their website, you can find their player statistics, including several novel stats. I copied the data they display into two csv files, one for Hitting and another for Fielding, and provided these data to my students along with instructions on what analyses I wanted them to use AI to perform. I also provide some support and assistance with getting the analysis started. The students provide a written report, including their analysis, data visualizations, conclusions and a description of the AI prompts they used. The project consists of the students using their favorite AI system to assist them in a multi-phase data analysis of the Banana Ball data. The analysis of the Banana Ball data was the last of several activities, the first couple of those assignments were meant to provide educational scaffolding. That is, they introduced the AI systems, let the students practice their prompt engineering, and become familiar with the capabilities and limitations of their preferred AI. When my students are given this project, they are given general guidelines of the types of analyses I expect them to complete, but they are allowed to choose the variables they want to analyze. The students and I work together for the first day of the project so that I can be certain that each student has uploaded their data properly and successfully started, then they are given time outside of class to complete it. Completing the project requires them to perform several types of analysis. The University of North Georgia-Dahlonega campus has roughly 5000 students and the classes I used this project in are introductory level statistics and data science courses with 32 or fewer students in them. My students were given the opportunity to complete an optional survey about these activities.