A cartoon to inmate a discussion about how it is more important to learn themes and concepts rather than individual facts. (the latter being a never ending list that no one can mange - the former being applicable to new situations). The cartoon was drawn by American cartoonist Jon Carter in 2012.
The Islands is a free, innovative, online virtual human population created by Dr Michael Bulmer from the University of Queensland. The Islands supports the teaching of statistics through data investigations by providing students with a realistic virtual world where they can propose statistical questions, design investigations and collect the necessary data for statistical analysis and interpretation. The wide range of data and tasks available on the Islands caters to many scientific areas and student interests. Must create an account to access this virtual world.
"Shorn of all subtlety and led naked out of the protective fold of educational research literature, there comes a sheepish little fact: lectures don’t work nearly as well as many of us would like to think." A quote by George Cobb (1947 - 2020) from his 1992 paper "Teaching Statistics," in Heeding the Call for Change: Suggestions for Curricular Action, ed. Lynn Steen, MAA Notes Number 22, 3-43. The quote is a well-phrased reminder that listening to lectures is not an effective way for students to learn.
A collection of jokes brainstormed by Larry Lesser (The University of Texas at El Paso) and Dennis Pearl (Penn State University) in January 2021, inspired by encountering the first item of unknown origin. The collection is designed with a particular activity in mind to have students compose and think about the many ways data are viewed and handled by focusing on jokes of the form "The data on _____A_________ are _____B_____,"
and then to explain what it means for data to be ___B____. 18 humorous examples are provided.
A haiku written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso for the ASA Day haiku contest celebrating the 180th anniversary of the American Statistical Association. This haiku might motivate students to learn about the history of ASA and/or of Florence Nightingale. The haiku won first place in the non-student division and was published in the January 2020 Amstat News.
A cartoon designed to build positive attitudes towards statistics in general and introduce some key notation.The cartoon was used in the September 2018 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Greg Baugher from Mercer University. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.
A cartoon that would be helpful in discussing how technology should be used to stress the importance of conceptual understanding over procedures and formulas.The cartoon was used in the May 2018 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by written by Justine Leon Uro, a student at the University of the Philippines Open University. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.
Explore the Hubble Deep Fields from a statistical point of view. Watch out for the booby traps of bias, the vagueness of variability, and the shiftiness of sample size as we travel on a photo safari through the Hubble Deep Fields (HDFs).
These pages explain the following basic statistics concepts: mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation and correlation coefficient (with example from the Institute on Climate and Planets).
This lesson introduces students to creating spreadsheets for statistical analysis.