Teaching Statistical Concepts,Fundamentals and Modelling

This article considers some issues in designing a course focusing on statistical concepts rather than memorizing formulae.     

The Relationship between Poor Numerical Abilities and Subsequent Difficulty in Accumulating Statistical Knowledge

Mathematics lecturers have long expressed concern about their students’ poor mathematical background and the effect this has on performance in first mathematics courses at university level. This article explores a similar concern about students’ numeracy in a statistics course for psychologists.     

谈高等数学的案例教学

通过数学案例教学，将以往数学教学过程中的理论课、习题课和考试课有机地结合起来，从而提高学生的知识水平和实际能力。     

Putting Cognitive Science Behind a Statistics Teacher's Intuition

Recent advances in cognitive science have led to an enriched understanding of how people learn. Using a framework presented by Willingham, this article examines instructional best practice from the perspective of conceptual understanding and its implications on statistics education.     

Using Actuarial Exam Problems to Teach Probability

This article describes how practice problems for the actuarial examination in probability can be used to encourage active, collaborative learning.     

Using Paper Helicopters to Teach Statistical Process Control

This hands‐on project uses a paper helicopter to teach students how to distinguish between common and special causes of variability when developing and using statistical process control charts. It allows the student to experience a process that is out‐of‐control due to imprecise or incomplete product design specifications and to discover how the process can be brought into control through the use of standardized product specifications and associated construction procedures. It also allows the student to experience common causes of variability, to distinguish these from the special causes of variability resulting from the incomplete design specifications, and to discover how standardization reduces process variability. The project has been used in both undergraduate and MBA classes and demonstrates these concepts in a way that is easy for the student to understand and remember.     

Development of an Augmented Reality Game to Teach Abstract Concepts in Food Chemistry

One of the most pressing issues for many land grant institutions is the ever increasing cost to build and operate wet chemistry laboratories. A partial solution is to develop computer‐based teaching modules that take advantage of animation, web‐based or off‐campus learning experiences directed at engaging students’ creative experiences. We used the learning objectives of one of the most difficult topics in food chemistry, enzyme kinetics, to test this concept. Students are apprehensive of this subject and often criticize the staid instructional methods typically used in teaching this material. As a result, students do not acquire a useful background in this important subject. To rectify these issues, we developed an interactive augmented reality application to teach the basic concepts of enzyme kinetics in the context of an interactive search that took students to several locations on campus where they were able to gather raw materials and view videos that taught the basics of enzyme kinetics as applied to the production of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The students needed this background to prepare for a mock interview with an HFCS manufacturer. Students and instructors alike found the game to be preferable to sitting in a classroom listening to, or giving, a PowerPoint presentation. We feel that this use of gaming technology to teach difficult, abstract concepts may be a breakthrough in food science education and help alleviate the drain on administrative budgets from multiple wet labs.     

Using PowerPoint Animations to Teach Operations Management Techniques and Concepts

This article examines the value of using complex animated PowerPoint presentations to teach operations management techniques and concepts. To provide context, literature covering the use of PowerPoint animations in business education is briefly reviewed. The specific animations employed in this study are identified and their expected benefits to students and faculty are discussed. Evidence of their perceived value to students and faculty is then presented.     

The graphics calculator as a teaching aid in statistics

This article explores some ideas for the imaginative use of a graphics calculator in introductory statistics teaching.     

Water Quality Statistics

Water quality experiments, especially the use of macroinvertebrates as indicators of water quality, offer an ideal context for connecting statistics and science. In the STAR program for secondary students and teachers, water quality experiments were also used as a context for teaching statistics. In this article, we trace one activity that uses virtual streams and repeated sampling to develop the notion of a hypothesis test for one proportion.     

Paper‐Clip Case: A Practical Activity to Improve Statistical Thinking for Engineering Students

In this article I present an activity introducing statistical concepts to engineering students to help them develop inductive reasoning and problem‐solving skills.     

Using Parallel Merge Sort to Teach Fundamental Concepts in Distributed Parallelism

This paper describes how the algorithm called parallel merge sort can be used to teach fundamental concepts in the design of parallel algorithms for a network of workstations (NOW). First, the basic algorithm is introduced and its performance studied. Then, through a series of improvements based on a close examination of the algorithm and the underlying communication network, students are shown how performance can be significantly enhanced. This incremental approach lets students observe, first-hand, the critical importance of communication overhead, granularity, latency, and load balancing in designing efficient distributed parallel algorithms for a NOW environment.     

What is The International Statistical Institute?

This is the second of a short series of articles briefly describing the organisations that sponsor Teaching Statistics.     

What is The Royal Statistical Society?

This is the first of a short series of articles briefly describing the organisations that sponsor Teaching Statistics. The series starts with The Royal Statistical Society.     

Statistics Poker: Reinforcing Basic Statistical Concepts

Learning basic statistical concepts does not need to be tedious or dry; it can be fun and interesting through cooperative learning in the small‐group activity of Statistics Poker. This article describes a teaching approach for reinforcing basic statistical concepts that can help students who have high anxiety and makes learning and reinforcing these concepts more interesting and fun.     

论提高小学生识字教学的有效性

无论是传统的语文教学,还是二期课改都将识字教学作为低年级教学的重点。造成学生识字困难的主要原因有汉字自身的结构和读者复杂性,也有小学生心理和认知的特点造成的。基于这些情况,在日常的识字教学中,试图从汉字的字形规律——象形、会意和形声字的构字特点及低年级学生的认知、心理规律角度出发,进行相应的识字教学策略的研究,通过实践研究,以期提高低年级识字教学的有效性,使学生真正地快乐识字。     

初中化学基本概念的教学

通过引导学生观察实验 ,形成概念 ,抓住概念的关键字词 ,帮助学生分析、理解概念 ,在复习时 ,通过找出概念间的联系 ,形成系统概念。从而帮助学生加深对概念的理解 ,进而应用概念解决实际问题     

Understanding Possibilities and Limitations of Abstract Chemical Representations for Achieving Conceptual Understanding

When learning with abstract and scientific multiple external representations (MERs), low prior knowledge learners are said to have difficulties in using these MERs to achieve conceptual understanding. Yet little is known about what these limitations precisely entail. In order to understand this, we presented 101 learners with low prior knowledge of abstract scientific MERs to see (a) how many, and what kind of ideas (propositions) learners remembered from these MERs and (b) what the impact of these ideas is on conceptual understanding of the content. Propositional analysis indicates that learners created flawed internal representations. The discussion analyses the potentials that the learners have in using abstract representations to increase their understanding of scientific information and possible effects of instruction.     

Intuitive Analysis of Variance – A Formative Assessment Approach

This article describes an assessment activity that can show students how much they intuitively understand about statistics, but also alert them to common misunderstandings. How the activity can be used formatively to help improve students' conceptual understanding of analysis of variance is discussed.