My move from the traditional curriculum to the simulation/randomization-based curriculum was confounded with the simultaneous move of inference to the beginning of the course. Not only was I going to dive in to simulation/randomization as the primary mode by which to develop student understanding of statistical significance, but I was going to try it while completely turning the traditional ordering on its head.[pullquote] But moving inference to week 2 means my students immediately experience statistics as a science, and they get this experience repeatedly throughout the course, and in the end showing them what statisticians do and how statisticians think is more important than my struggle with where to put the definitions of parameter and statistic.[/pullquote] Continue reading →