Resource Library

October 12, 2010 T&L webinar presented by George Cobb(Mount Holyoke College) and hosted by Leigh Slauson (Capital University). What's the best way to introduce students of mathematics to statistics? Tradition offers two main choices: a variant of the standard "Stat 101" course, or some version of the two-semester sequence in probability and mathematical statistics. I hope to convince participants to think seriously about a third option: the theory and applications of linear models as a first statistics course for sophomore math majors. Rather than subject you to a half-hour polemic, however, I plan to talk concretely about multiple regression models and methodological challenges that arise in connection with AAUP data relating faculty salaries to the percentage of women faculty, and to present also a short geometric proof of the Gauss-Markov Theorem.

This is short clip from a longer documentary shown on BBC. The BBC documentary takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride through the wonderful world of statistics to explore the remarkable power thay have to change our understanding of the world, presented by superstar boffin Professor Hans Rosling, whose eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend. Rosling is a man who revels in the glorious nerdiness of statistics, and here he entertainingly explores their history, how they work mathematically and how they can be used in today's computer age to see the world as it really is, not just as we imagine it to be. Rosling's lectures use huge quantities of public data to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes.

Do not make things easy for yourself by speaking or thinking of data as if they were different from what they are; and do not go off from facing data as they are, to amuse your imagination by wishing they were different from what they are. Such wishing is pure waste of nerve force, weakens your intellectual power, and gets you into habits of mental confusion. is a quote by English mathematician and mathematics educator Mary Everest Boole (1832-1916). The quote is found on page 7 of her 1909 book "Philosophy and Fun of Algebra", (C.W. Daniel, Ltd.) written to bring then modern mathematical ideas to children. The book is available online through Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org/files/13447/13447-pdf.pdf

This issue contains articles about microarray data and the partnership between statisticians and biologists, ASA Stat Bowl at JSM 2005, an interview with Stat Bowl 2004 champion Jesse Frey, USCOTS 2005 plans, cluster sampling, an analysis of Civil War intelligence sleuth's Alan Pinkerton's incompetence.

This issue contains articles about the birthday problem probabilities using simulation analysis using R; making money on eBay using multiple regression to estimate prices of violins; McDonald's French fry actual mass vs. industry standard mass student project; PC vs. Mac computers survey of Harvard students; EESEE electronic story and exercise encyclopedia; 12 types of variables used in statistical analysis; the history of probability in the Enlightenment for rational decisions in law, science, and politics.

This issue contains articles about statistics in sports, including batting average, using scatterplots to predict the winners of long-distance races, regression analysis and the NFL, determining the greatest cyclist ever, simulation in public opinion polls, and determining the "best" athletes for cycling and baseball.

This issue contains articles about binomial confidence intervals; the team effect in stock car racing; using multiple tests (one-sample t-test and sign test); the "two-envelope exchange paradox" (similar to the Monty Hall problem) with discussions of expectation, likelihood, and inference; regression line vs. trend line; calculations of standard normal table values and pi; teaching at a small liberal arts college; modeling extreme events.

This issue contains articles about steroids in baseball; finding ways to make learning statistics fun; an interview with Joan Garfield about Statistics Education; an introduction to response surface methodology; and a look at the vocabulary used in experimental design.

This issue contains articles on: The advantages and pitfalls of using online panel research, including a discussion of improving data quality and designing the survey research strategically, sequential sampling and testing in a "simple against simple" situation, including a description of Abraham Wald's historical and theoretical contributions to the theory, and R code for running simulations, and the experience and results of an exit poll conducted by two students in Washington D.C. during the 2008 presidential election.

This site contains a small collection of videos about how to use Minitab.