statistics
18 March 2020
We live in interesting times. It warms my heart to see my discipline of mathematical modelling used to predict and manage the outbreak behaviour. How much easier it will be to explain Operations Research after this! In New Zealand we have yet to feel the full force of the Covid-19 pandemic, but anxiety hangs in the air. Around the world schools and colleges are closing their doors to slow the spread of the virus and students and teachers are forced to enter the world of distance learning. Nine years ago the Christchurch earthquakes meant that the University where I worked […]
8 April 2019
Videos about probability distributions Many introductory statistics courses include a considerable section on probability distributions, featuring the binomial and normal distributions. Consequently we have a suite of videos about probability distribution models, to help learners and teachers, especially those who wish to aim for conceptual more than mathematical understanding. In this post I will outline the main videos available on the Dr Nic’s Maths and Stats YouTube Channel. They already belong to thousands of playlists and lists of recommended resources in textbooks the world over. We are happy for teachers and learners to continue to link to them. Having them listed […]
13 November 2018
Conceptual vs procedural when teaching maths and stats April 2008, Salt Lake City. It was my first NCTM conference and I was awed by the number of dedicated teachers of mathematics in one place. I had soaked in a pre-conference series about teaching statistics and my head was full of revolutionary ideas. I can’t remember the workshop I was attending but I declared that I saw no point in teaching students to calculate standard deviations by hand – and that I never did. The response was awesome! There was just about a stand-up battle between teachers who agreed with me […]
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. […]
18 September 2018
Population, Sample, Sampling distribution of the mean Among the many contenders for Dr Nic’s confusing terminology award is the term “Sampling distribution.” One problem is that it is introduced around the same time as population, distribution, sample and the normal distribution. A common confusion is between the standard error and the standard deviation. Here is how I explain it: Basic idea of inferential statistics Whenever we take a sample it will contain sampling error, which can also be described as sampling variation. No sample is a perfect representation of the population. When you calculate a sample mean, you do not […]
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 March 2018
There are many good ways to teach mathematics and statistics Hiding in the bookshelves in the University of Otago Library, I wept as I read the sentence, “There are many good ways to raise children.” As a mother of a baby with severe disabilities the burden to get it right weighed down on me. This statement told me to put down the burden. I could do things differently from other mothers, and none of us needed to be wrong. The same is true of teaching maths and stats – “There are many good ways to teach mathematics and statistics.” (Which […]
15 February 2018
The message of many popular mathematics and statistics videos is harming people’s perceptions of the nature of these disciplines. I acknowledge the potential for conflict of interest in this post – critically examining the role of video in learning and teaching mathematics and statistics – when StatsLC has a YouTube channel, and also provides videos through teaching and learning systems. But I do wonder what message it sends when people like Sal Khan of Khan Academy and Mister Woo are applauded for their well-intentioned, and successful attempts to take a procedural view of mathematics to the masses. Video by its […]
Like, Share, Comment, Subscribe, Join – YouTube!