At 12:36 PM 9/19/01 -0500, jeff rasmussen wrote:
> >
> One thing I recently did was divide the class into 6 groups of ~5
> each.
>Each group got a baggy with different stuff: one was multicolored
>confetti, another was different types of pasta, another was different
>lenghts of twine that had an inverse relationship between lenght and color
>saturation. Their task was to Organize, Summarize, Describe, Graph and
>Present the results & also to make the results attractive via Graphic
>Design considerations. The class voted on who did the best job (I was
>quite surprised that the confetti group won since they had little to work
>with in terms of the complexity of the data set). At the end of the year
>after a couple such contests, I'll give the winners a prize... usually
>Godiva Chocolate.
one thing that is a given here ... for most groups taking statistics for
the first time ... is that, since most do NOT like math ... and numbers ...
that transfers to statistics ... the logic to them goes like:
1. i hate numbers
2. statistics has numbers in it
3. therefore, i WILL hate statistics
now, the reality is that there will NOT be much you can do about that ...
but, what you can do is to make your class or course ... data driven ...
that is, have students work with data ... (i can't attest to whether the
above "sets" of data are the right ones to use)
but, what i do say about using data is that the data should be
UNDERSTANDABLE to the students ...
note that i did not say "meaningful" or "relevant" to them ... ie,
tailoring the data you use to the INTERESTS of students ... unfortunately,
probably every student would be interested in something different but, it
is critical that they understand the data they are using or playing around
with ... things they are familiar with
of course, talking about descriptive oriented topics within statistics is
rather easy to do ... but, when it comes to inference ... that is a tougher
nut to crack since there many many assumptions that have to be made ABOUT
the data ... about the population ... about the methods by which you GOT
the data ... and, in addition, the logic about inference is not that simple
to follow
IMHO of course
_________________________________________________________
dennis roberts, educational psychology, penn state university
208 cedar, AC 8148632401, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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