Our AP Statistics class and Geometry classes thank our important guests today ~ your comments, insight -- and humor(!) -- engaged our students and brought more of the real-world into the classroom. Truly, we appreciated your time and interest.
Here we are in the middle of a very beautiful April. My AP Statistics students are diligently (albeit tiredly) working, full-steam ahead. Our goal is in site: the AP Stats exam held nationally on May 4th. We've covered 12 dense chapters in an especially rigorous text, Yates, et al., "The Practice of Statistics." If you are an AP Stats student or teacher, you know how strong a textbook and curriculum this is.
Our focus since late January has been on the holy grail of statistics: inference. What is inference? Inference is the process of analyzing properly collected data, forming a hypothesis, deciding which statistic to calculate, and then (drum roll, please), drawing a valid conclusion to make important decisions. It's the raison d'etre, really, of the discipline. Are the decreased number of lymphcytic cells in a sample of patients due to a new chemotherapy regime, or just as likely due to chance variation? Are the increased test scores in a sample of 1000 high school juniors due to better instruction, or just natural variation? Yes, inference is what really matters.
So my students have been verrrrry patient and diligent as I go on-and-on about the power and beauty of the problem sets they are completing. But you know, they're getting it. They really are. And this is where the real beauty is: when I see Katie say, "I was watching Animal Planet and there is this researcher in Japan. He drew these conclusions about chimpanzees and I questioned the design of his experiment." This student, by the way, followed up her curiosity by researching the exact study conducted and understanding the validity of the inferences! Or, when Olivia commented one day, "I was watching TV with my dad and there was this story. I said, 'How can they be sure? What about confounding variables? What about randomization?'" Yes, they're thinking critically and listening actively. No math teacher could be more pleased.
So, regardless of how my charges perform on the AP Stats exam this year (and I know they'll do great), I already have inferences of my own: they have studied, they have worked. They have learned and they have grown. I know it.
"[A] mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. " Oliver Wendell Holmes, US author & physician (1809 - 1894)
Here we are in the middle of a very beautiful April. My AP Statistics students are diligently (albeit tiredly) working, full-steam ahead. Our goal is in site: the AP Stats exam held nationally on May 4th. We've covered 12 dense chapters in an especially rigorous text, Yates, et al., "The Practice of Statistics." If you are an AP Stats student or teacher, you know how strong a textbook and curriculum this is.Our focus since late January has been on the holy grail of statistics: inference. What is inference? Inference is the process of analyzing properly collected data, forming a hypothesis, deciding which statistic to calculate, and then (drum roll, please), drawing a valid conclusion to make important decisions. It's the raison d'etre, really, of the discipline. Are the decreased number of lymphcytic cells in a sample of patients due to a new chemotherapy regime, or just as likely due to chance variation? Are the increased test scores in a sample of 1000 high school juniors due to better instruction, or just natural variation? Yes, inference is what really matters.
So my students have been verrrrry patient and diligent as I go on-and-on about the power and beauty of the problem sets they are completing. But you know, they're getting it. They really are. And this is where the real beauty is: when I see Katie say, "I was watching Animal Planet and there is this researcher in Japan. He drew these conclusions about chimpanzees and I questioned the design of his experiment." This student, by the way, followed up her curiosity by researching the exact study conducted and understanding the validity of the inferences! Or, when Olivia commented one day, "I was watching TV with my dad and there was this story. I said, 'How can they be sure? What about confounding variables? What about randomization?'" Yes, they're thinking critically and listening actively. No math teacher could be more pleased.
So, regardless of how my charges perform on the AP Stats exam this year (and I know they'll do great), I already have inferences of my own: they have studied, they have worked. They have learned and they have grown. I know it.
"[A] mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. " Oliver Wendell Holmes, US author & physician (1809 - 1894)
3 comments:
I was interested in the relationship between probability and statistics. I think I had a class named 'Probability and Statistics' in college. I enjoyed probability more, though. It was fun to learn about the birthday paradox. Eventually the class involved more and more calculus, which I recall not liking. At all!
Geometry was favorite class in high school...
How neat!
When I took stats in college (back in the dark ages!) it was called Prob/Stats also. It's interesting. Our daughter just took a stats course as a senior in college and her stats course was all calculus-based. Sometimes I miss the ol' Calculus! I don;t teach it here at RMHS but man, I loved it in college.
Thanks for commenting!
Hi Mrs. Fitzpatrick! I also enjoy statistics very much. I love figuring out sports players' stats. I hope that I have the oppurtunity to take your statisics class in the future.
-Garrett Colantino Block F
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