Webinars

Many instructors use projects to ensure that students experience the challenge of synthesizing key elements learned throughout a course. However, students can often have difficulty adjusting from traditional homework to a true research project that requires searching the literature, transitioning from a research question to a statistical model, preparing a proposal for analysis, collecting data, determine an appropriate technique for analysis, and presenting the results. This webinar presents multi-day lab modules that bridge the gap between smaller, focused textbook problems to large projects that help students experience the role of a research scientist. These labs can be combined to form a second statistics course, individually incorporated into an introductory statistics course, used to form the basis of an individual research project, or used to help students and researchers in other disciplines better understand how statisticians approach data analysis.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

There is a large body of research on the mechanisms underlying student learning. In this webinar, we will explore four principles distilled from this research - the role of prior knowledge, how students organize knowledge, meaningful engagement, and goal-directed practice and feedback - and illustrate their application in the teaching of statistics. A more detailed example will be given to show how these principles can be integrated to develop and support our students' conceptual understanding.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

Writing can be an effective instrument for students learning new concepts, and there is a plethora of writing-to-learn research. This Webinar will summarize important findings from the writing literature, as well as provide specific writing-assignment examples for the introductory statistics classroom.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

Math majors, and other mathematically inclined students, have typically been introduced to statistics through courses in probability and mathematical statistics. We worry that such a course sequence presents mathematical aspects of statistics without emphasizing applications and the larger reasoning process of statistical investigations. In this webinar we describe and discuss a data-centered course that we have developed for mathematically inclined undergraduates.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

Computing is an increasingly important element of statistical practice and research. It is an essential tool in our daily work, it shapes the way we think about statistics, and broadens our concept of statistical science. Although many agree that there should be more computing in the statistics curriculum and that statistics students need to be more computationally capable and literate, it can be difficult to determine how the curriculum should change because computing has many dimensions. In this webinar we explore alternatives to teaching statistics that include innovations in data technologies, modern statistical methods, and a variety of computing skills that will enable our students to become active and engaged participants in scientific discovery.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

The procedural steps involved in completing a statistical investigation are often discussed in an introductory statistics course. For example, students usually gain knowledge about developing an appropriate research question, performing appropriate descriptive and graphical summaries, completing the necessary inferential procedures, and communicating the results of such an analysis. The traditional sequencing of topics in an introductory course places statistical inference near the end. As a result, students have limited opportunities to perform a complete statistical investigation. We propose a new sequencing of topics that may enhance students' ability to perform a complete statistical investigation from beginning to end.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

This presentation will describe the "Buffet" method for teaching multi-section courses. In this method, students are offered a choice of content delivery strategies designed to match different individual learning styles. The choice is exercised through an on-line "contract" entered into by students at the beginning of the term. The webinar will describe our experiences with the buffet strategy at Ohio State and discuss how key elements of the strategy can also be adapted to smaller classes to improve student learning.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

As we consider how we might improve our introductory statistics course we are constrained by a variety of environmental/logistical and pedagogical issues that must be addressed if we want our students to complete the course saying it was useful, it was relevant and practical, and that it increased their communicational, computational, technological and analytical skills. If not properly considered, such issues may result in the course being considered unsatisfying, incomprehensible, and/or unnecessarily obtuse.This Webinar will focus on key course content concerns that must be addressed and will engage participants in discussing resolutions. Participants will also have the opportunity to describe and discuss other content barriers to effective statistical pedagogy. Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

This webinar will include an introduction to the idea of assessment for learning - assessments that support learning, enhance learning, and provide additional learning opportunities that support instruction. Several fundamental measurement tools will be described to support the development of effective assessments that work.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)

Writing can be a wonderful tool to help illuminate what students are learning in our statistics courses. Examples and strategies to include writing in your teaching toolkit -- and to increase the writing skills of students -- include team assignments, weekly case reports, in-class questions, and others. The webinar will share effective approaches and assignments gleaned from twenty years of using writing in introductory and upper-level statistics courses.Watch Webinar Recording (FLASH)