Transcript Standard (Logistic) Regression

Letting Go of the Idea that Stats Class Can’t be fun and FUNctional!
Shonda Kuiper, Grinnell College
Larry Lesser, The University of Texas at El Paso
Dennis Pearl, The Ohio State University
Michael A. Posner, Villanova University
OVERVIEW
DEMONSTRATIONS
Having fun in statistics is motivating
Key reference: Lesser & Pearl’s paper “Functional Fun in Statistics Teaching: Resources, Research, and Recommendations” in the Nov. 2008 Journal of Statistics
Education (free, online)
Time
Pfahl 230 Pfahl 220
9:30
Cartoons
Magic
Games are an important tool for learning Play is much more than just fun, it is “essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and
youth,” [Ginsburg 2007]. The importance of play is so essential that the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has recognized the right of every child to
engage in play and leisure activities. [Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Convention on the Rights of the Child. General Assembly
Resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989. Available at: www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm retrieved May 9, 2009]. “In addition to developing skills, play can also
uniquely motivate students to develop basic competencies and interest in more specialized domains of knowledge by encouraging personal and social investments” [Jenkins
2005, p 49].
9:45
Games
Music
10:00
Cartoons
Magic
10:15
Games
Music
Games
♠ Games have a low threat of failure and sequence tasks to
allow for early success. They maintain a threshold at which
players feel challenged but not overwhelmed.
♣ Games motivate students to learn because students clearly
see how knowledge is related to the goals of the game.
♥ Games allow statisticians to create simplified models of the
world around us. Games can extend students’ knowledge and
success from a simple model to a variety of more complex real
world problems in a variety of disciplines.
♦ Game based learning fosters a sense of engagement.
Students become immersed in a game, share ideas which lead
to peer-to-peer teaching, and are inspired to seek out new
knowledge to improve their gaming abilities.
Examples
♠ Simon and Perfection: Interactive Web-based games
that imitate psychology experiments. Students develop their
own research questions, design their own experiments and
present their results.
♣ Casino Day: Students are motivated to understand
conditional probability as they develop and play casino-type
games.
♥ Final Challenge: To prepare for the final exam, students
form teams and attempt to quickly find common errors in
student work, develop appropriate hypotheses, and calculate
appropriate values.
References
Jenkins, H. (2005). Getting into the game. Educational
Leadership, 62(7), 48-51. Nippold, M.A
http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/kuipers/stat2labs
Music
Educational uses of music
• Can lower anxiety and build community
• Jingles help recall content (VanVoorhis, 2002)
• Multiple intelligences
• Critical thinking in real contexts (Lesser, 2001)
Examples
• Help recall p-value by singing Lesser’s jingle (tune:
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat”): “It is key to know what
p-value means: It’s the chance with the null you obtain
data that’s at least that extreme.”
• Apply critical thinking to lyrics, such as this chorus
from a Gary Morris country song: “Ain’t no sun, ain’t
no blue sky. The wind blows cold now that you’ve gone
away. And tomorrow, just like today, there’s a hundred
percent chance of rain.”
• Motivate probability/statistics thinking with examples
like composition (e.g., Mozart’s Dice Game),
characterizing hit songs, etc.
References
• Songs at www.causeweb.org/resources/fun/
• Lesser, L.(2001).Musical means: Using songs in
teaching statistics.Teaching Statistics 23(3), 81-85
• Lesser, L. (2002). Stat song sing-along. Stats, 33,16-17.
• VanVoorhis, C.R.W. (2002). Stat jingles: To sing or not
to sing. Teaching of Psychology 29, 249-50.
Magic
Why Do Magic?
• Everyone loves magic!!!
• Student attention spans are…sorry, I lost my thought
•Engages everyone
Educational uses of Magic
•Break from traditional lecture-style learning
•Reinforce/learn concepts without students even
realizing they are learning
•Offers critical thinkers the opportunity to think
about statistics and the trick
Cartoons
• Cartoons require no special ability to use.
• Easily added to course websites and into presentations
• Wide variety of learning objectives covered by
available resources.
• Facilitates positive atmosphere and engaging whole
class discussions
Examples
My Favorite Trick
“Out of This World”
• Rated as one of the top ten tricks by magicians
• Requires only a deck of cards (and practice)
• Frequency cited as praise in teaching evaluations
• Statistical concepts covered
• Probability
• Independence
• Binomial distribution
• Normal approximation to the binomial
• Hypothesis testing
Resources
• http://www.penguinmagic.com/
• http://homepage.villanova.edu/michael.posner
References
•Reeves, A. (2008), Cartoon Corner: Humor-Based
Mathematics Activities. Reston, VA: National Council
of Teachers of Mathematics.
•Perales-Palacios, F. J. and Vilchez-Gonzales, J. M.
(2002), "Teaching Physics by Means of Cartoons: A
Qualitative Study in Secondary Education," Physics
Education, 37(5), 400-406.