A cartoon suitable for use in teaching the difference between how the word random is used in probability compared to some uses in everyday parlance. The cartoon is number 1210 (May, 2013) 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
A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about Bayes Theorem (an obvious follow-up exercise is to ask what “P(C)” would have to be to make the “Modified Bayes Theorem” correct). The cartoon is number 2059 (October, 2018) 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.
Summary: Through generating, collecting, displaying, and analyzing data, students are given the opportunity to explore a variety of descriptive statistical techniques and develop an understanding of the distinction between theoretical, subjective, and empirical (or experimental) probabilities. These concepts are developed with activities using Hershey KissesTM and may be extended to introduce the sampling distribution of a sample proportion. The activities are described in M. Richardson and S. Haller. (2002), “What is the Probability of a Kiss? (It's Not What You Think),” Journal of Statistics Education, 10(3), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10691898.2002.11910683
Specifics: The main activity uses Hershey’s Kisses to explore the concept of probability. Three specific sub-activities are performed such as:
(Resource photo illustration by Barbara Cohen, 2020; this summary compiled by Bibek Aryal)
A joke about the meaning of an inequality symbol like ≤ written in February 2020 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso and Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.
A poem written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso to discuss the topic of randomness and the lexical ambiguity of the word "random" in statistical versus everyday usage. The poem is part of a collection of 8 poems published with commentary in the January 2020 issue of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
A joke to start a discussion about how probability is used to study uncertainty in real life situations. The joke might depend somewhat on the composition of the audience since understanding the joke relies on knowing that probabilidad is the Spanish word for probability. Also, in delivering the joke it might help to put some emphasis on the last syllable to make this a true "dad joke". The joke was written in 2019 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso.
A cartoon to illustrate the value of statistics in the software that controls many devices. The cartoon was drawn in 2013 by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Ohio State University. This item is part of the cartoons and readings from the “World Without Statistics” series that provided cartoons and readings on important applications of statistics created for celebration of 2013 International Year of Statistics. The series may be found at https://online.stat.psu.edu/stat100/lesson/1/1.4
A cartoon for use in celebrations of Random Acts of Kindness Day which is an unofficial holiday in many countries typically celebrated in February. Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on the suggested illustrating text and concept from Larry Lesser (The University of Texas at El Paso). The cartoon was first displayed on the website http://www.worldofstatistics.org on Random Acts of Kindness day in February 2014. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites or other non-profit teaching uses.
STATS magazine contains many articles that may be of interest to students of statistics and educators. Articles vary from those that are meant to teach and inform about different concepts and ideas to those that provide ideas for how to teach important topics to others. Some issues also include interesting data sets and information about ways to become more involved in the greater Statistics community.
A cartoon to instigate discussions on the use of random numbers in both designing and analyzing data.The cartoon was used in the October 2018 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Anthony Bonifonte from Denison 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.