Statistics

courses we are working on

Status as of January 2013:

Course	Learning goals	New Assessments	Improved Methods
STAT 200: Elementary Statistics for Applications ('07 start) Faculty: E. Yu, Y. Lim STLF: Gaitri Yapa STAT 200 Learning Outcomes (learning goals)	Course-level goals: complete Topic-level goals: complete Ongoing discussion for improvement, with faculty who are/will be teaching for the first time.	Compared the effectiveness of two different lab activities in helping students understand sampling distributions. Comparison of student performances on exam and midterm questions following targeted interventions. On-line mid-course survey, for small amount of credit, elicits sizeable response and useful data.	Developed and trialed worksheets/in-class activities for use in each class. Clicker questions used in every class. Lab activities improved to focus on key concepts that learners typically find difficult. Students work together in pre-assigned groups within each lab. Pre-reading quizzes trialed to begin each lab session. TAs completed a feedback survey on their opinions about each lab session. Weekly on-line assignments in WeBWorK, eleven in total. Two-stage midterm and final examination trialed, in which students collaborated in their lab groups for part of the tests. Adopted more efficient method for grading written assignments to reduce turnaround time.
STAT 241/251: Elementary Statistics (Sept '11 start) Faculty: Y. Lim STLF: Gaitri Yapa Poster (CWSEI EOY 2012): Recent Developments in the Transformation of Statistics Courses with Highlights on Revisions to STAT 241/251 Labs	Course-level goals: complete Topic-level goals: complete	Intervention used to address misconception identified on midterm exam question. On-line mid-course survey, for small amount of credit, elicits sizeable response and useful data. Post-course interviews, also used to validate a new concept inventory, explore student retention.	Context rich problems included in assignments, midterm tests and examination. On-line homework assignments in WeBWorK, six sets of questions in total with a further four in development. Additional interventions introduced for students performing poorly on the midterm tests. New material incorporated to expand the number of labs. Students work together in pre-assigned groups within each lab. De-briefing by TAs at the end of lab sessions. TAs completed a feedback survey on their opinions about each lab session.
STAT 300: Intermediate Statistics for Applications (Sept '12 start) Faculty: B. Dunham, P. Gustafson STLF: Gaitri Yapa	Course-level goals: complete Topic-level goals: complete	On-line mid-course survey, for small amount of credit, elicits sizeable response and useful data. Planning to investigate how students taking this course perform on STAT 305 and STAT 306 compared to peers who did not take STAT 300.	All lecture sessions used in-class activities on which students work in preselected groups. Class activities are supported by clicker questions. Detailed course notes created, available via course website. Students work together in pre-assigned groups within each lab session. New labs in Earth Science Building provide better environment for group-based activities. Two-stage midterm test trialed, in which students collaborated in their lab groups for part of the test. Planning creation of short “pencast” mini-lectures, to be made available on-line.
STAT 302: Introduction to Probability (Sept '11 start) Faculty: E. Yu STLF: Gaitri Yapa	Course-level goals: complete Topic-level goals: complete	Post-course knowledge retention interviews conducted, with eight student participants so far. On-line mid-course survey, for small amount of credit, elicits sizeable response and useful data. Effectiveness of an intervention – teaching on topic via in-class activity compared to traditional lecture – compared via student performance on final examination question.	Clicker questions developed and used for each lecture. Created and trialed two in-class activities to target concepts where student misconceptions have been observed. Ongoing work developing in-class activities for each class. Students to work on activities in pre-selected groups each class. Development of weekly WeBWorK on-line homework assignments.
STAT 305: Introduction to Statistical Inference (Sept '12 start) Faculty: W. Welch STLF: Gaitri Yapa	Course-level goals: complete Topic-level goals: complete	Post-course knowledge retention interviews on-going. Planning to give mid-course survey.	Ongoing work developing in-class activities, supported by clicker questions, for each class. Students to work on lecture and lab activities in pre-selected groups each class. New labs in Earth Science Building provide better environment for group-based activities.
Poster (2009): CWSEI Projects in the Department of Statistics — Bruce Dunham, Rebekah Mohr, & Eugenia Yu STAT 100 – Statistical Thinking: A rather novel introductory course in the discipline, STAT 100 involves six "modules", each on a different theme in statistical science accessible to learners who have not had previous exposure to the discipline. The course was offered for the second time in 2009, and after the first run it was decided by the teaching team (of five instructors) that clickers would be used in future to help improve student engagement. This idea was implemented, and in-house training and support was offered by Eugenia Yu. In total about half of the faculty in the department now have used clickers in their teaching. STAT 335 – Statistics in Quality Assurance: This course was revived in 2008, having not been offered for some years. The new incarnation of the course was enhanced using CWSEI methodology. In particular: (a) Learning outcomes were devised. (b) Detailed books of notes covering the material were created and posted online. (c) In-class activities were used in the lectures, during which the students would work in groups on an activity, aided by the support of the instructor. (d) Laboratory activities involving group work were used to illustrate concepts using computer applications. STAT 335 Learning Outcomes (learning goals) STAT 443 – Time Series and Forecasting: Having been twice previously offered as a "topics" course, this "new" addition to the department's upper-level offerings was improved this year by instruction that placed less emphasis on the traditional lecture. In a similar fashion to STAT 335, students worked in groups on activities within the classes, with instructor support. Often concepts were introduced informally in an activity before a more formal presentation of the idea was provided in a short lecture. Solutions to an in-class activity were posted shortly after the class for timely feedback. As measured by student performance and satisfaction, this change in instruction style has been successful. STAT 443 Learning Outcomes (learning goals)