practicality
8 October 2018
Mathematics is powerful The message of the moment is that Mathematics is beautiful and mathematics is playful. In my social media bubble of mathematics teachers the over-riding picture is of the joy of mathematics. I see puzzles and brainteasers aplenty on Facebook and Twitter. Mathematics educators strive to dispel the cloud of pain and drill that surrounds maths for far too many people. This site and our social enterprise are called Creative Maths, because we wish to create a world of mathematicians. The joy of maths is a wonderful message, that resonates with people like me, who already love maths. […]
14 May 2018
We need to teach all our students how to design, create, test, debug and use spreadsheets. We need to teach this integrated with mathematics, statistics and computational thinking. Spreadsheets can be a valuable tool in many other subject areas including biology, physics, history and geography, thus facilitating integrated learning experiences. Spreadsheets are versatile and ubiquitous – and most have errors. A web search on “How many spreadsheets have errors?” gives alarming results. The commonly quoted figure is 88%. These spreadsheets with errors are not just little home spreadsheets for cataloguing your Lego collection or planning your next vacation. These spreadsheets […]
5 April 2018
Statistical software for worried students: Appearances matter Let’s be honest. Most students of statistics are taking statistics because they have to. I asked my class of 100 business students who choose to take the quantitative methods course if they did not have to. Two hands went up. Face it – statistics is necessary but not often embraced. But actually it is worse than that. For many people statistics is the most dreaded course they are required to take. It can be the barrier to achieving their career goals as a psychologist, marketer or physician. (And it should be required for many other […]
5 February 2018
To quote Willy Wonka, “A little magic now and then is relished by the best of men [and women].” Any frequent reader of this blog will know that I am of a pragmatic nature when it comes to using statistics. For most people the Central Limit Theorem can remain in the realms of magic. I have never taught it, though at times I have waved my hands past it. Students who want that sort of thing can read about it in their textbooks or look it up online. The New Zealand school curriculum does not include it, as I explained […]
7 December 2016
Hints for conference benefit maximisation I am writing this post in a spartan bedroom in Glenn Hall at La Trobe University in Bundoora (Melbourne, Australia.) Some outrageously loud crows are doing what crows do best outside my window, and I am pondering on how to get the most out of conferences. In my previous life as a University academic, I attended a variety of conferences, and discovered some basic hints for enjoying them and feeling that my time was productively used. In the interests of helping conference newcomers I share them here. They are in no particular order. 1. Lower […]
16 February 2016
There is a push for teachers and students to use real data in learning statistics. In this post I am going to address the benefits and drawbacks of different sources of real data, and make a case for the use of good fictional data as part of a statistical programme. Here is a video introducing our fictional data set of 180 or 240 dragons, so you know what I am referring to. Real collected, real database, trivial, fictional There are two main types of real data. There is the real data that students themselves collect and there is real data in […]
3 February 2016
It is possible to get a passing grade in a statistics paper by putting numbers into formulas and words into memorised phrases. In fact I suspect that this is a popular way for students to make their way through a required and often unwanted subject. Most teachers of statistics would say that they would like students to understand what they are doing. This was a common sentiment expressed by participants in the excellent MOOC, Teaching statistics through data investigations (which is currently running again in January to May 2016.) Understanding This makes me wonder what it means for students to […]
27 July 2015
Three Problems and a Solution Modern teaching methods for statistics have gone beyond the mathematical calculation of trivial problems. Computers can enable large size studies, bringing reality to the subject, but this is not without its own problems. Problem 1: Giving students experience of the whole statistical process There are many reasons for students to learn statistics through running their own projects, following the complete statistical enquiry process, posing a problem, planning the data collection, collecting and cleaning the data, analysing the data and drawing conclusions that relate back to the original problem. Individual projects can be both time consuming and […]
2 February 2015
The following is a guest post by Tony Hak of Rotterdam School of Management. I know Tony would love some discussion about it in the comments. I remain undecided either way, so would like to hear arguments. GOOD REASONS FOR NOT TEACHING SIGNIFICANCE TESTING It is now well understood that p-values are not informative and are not replicable. Soon null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) will be obsolete and will be replaced by the so-called “new” statistics (estimation and meta-analysis). This requires that undergraduate courses in statistics now already must teach estimation and meta-analysis as the preferred way to present and analyze empirical […]