A joke to introduce the idea of asymptotic distributions. The joke was written by Dennis Pearl of The Ohio State University.
A joke to introduce the idea of asymptotic distributions. The joke was written by Dennis Pearl of The Ohio State University.
This 6 minute 39 second video can be used to teach the difference between correlation and causation. For example, that a relationship between X and Y might be explained by X causing Y, Y causing X, or a third factor that drives them both. The video is episode #109 (Nov 10, 2009) in the Psych Files podcast series produced and hosted by Michael A. Britt, Ph.D. at www.thepsychfiles.com. Video is free to use in the classroom or on course websites under a non-commercial ShareAlike creative commons license.
A joke to teach the meaning of "significance" written in 2011 by University of Texas at El Paso professor of Mathematical Sciences, Lawrence Mark Lesser (1964-).
There is no such thing as no chance is a quote by American businessman and founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford (1863-1947). The quote is from a speech given to the 1930 class of students at Edison Laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It is referred to on page 14 of the 1930 book "American Florist".
A song lyric by Dennis Pearl of The Ohio State University written as a parody of the 1960 tune "Hit the Road Jack" by Percy Mayfield; made popular by Ray Charles in his 1961 recording. What to say in class before song: There are times when the mode may be preferred to the mean - especially if the concept of interest is tied to understanding the most likely situation. You might remember that Ray Charles used to sing a song about this... In a class where Bayesian and Maximum Likelihood methodology has been introduced you might add the following after the first sentence "For example when you assume a uniform non-informative prior for a parameter, then the m.l.e. coincides with the mode of the posterior distribution - and the mean of the posterior distribution may not be a good estimate." Tip for Teaching: The song takes up a bit too much class time for delivering its message. Thus, for in-class use, it is recommended to play only the first verse or three. Musical accompaniment realization and male vocals are by Joshua Lintz, female vocals are by Mariana Sandoval from University of Texas at El Paso.
This simulation allows you to roll two dice and compare empirical and probability histograms for the sum or product of the two outcomes.
This is an extensive collection (and a continuously expanding collection) of applets on topics that include probability, descriptive statistics, sampling distributions, Monte Carlo simulation, Buffon's coin problem, chi-square, p-values, correlation, and more. There is even a random number generator that is part of the collection.
This applet displays various distributions and allows the user to experiment with the parameters to see the effects on the curve.
This applet simulates rolling dice to illustrate the central limit theorem. The user can choose between 1, 2, 6, or 9 dice to roll 1, 5, 20, or 100 times. The distribution is graphically displayed. This applet needs to be resized for optimal viewing.
This applet shades the graph and computes the probability of X, when X is between two parameters x1 and x2. The user inputs the mean, standard deviation, x1 and x2. This applet should be resized for optimal viewing.