Robert delMas, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota
A different flavor of introductory statistics: Teaching students to really cook
Abstract: The NSF-funded CATALST project is developing a radically different undergraduate introductory-statistics course based on ideas presented by George Cobb and Danny Kaplan (Cobb, 2007a, b; Kaplan, 2007). Standard parametric tests of significance, such as the two-sample t-test and Chi-square analyses, are not taught in the course. Instead, a carefully designed sequence of activities based on research in mathematics and statistics education help students develop their understanding of randomness, chance models, randomization tests and bootstrap coverage intervals. For each unit in this course, students first engage in a Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA; Lesh & Doer, 2003; Zawojewski, Bowman, & Diefes-Dux, 2008) that primes them for learning the statistical content of the unit (Schwartz, 2004). This is followed by activities where the students explore how to model chance and chance models using modeling software such as TinkerPlots and then transition to carry out randomization tests and estimate bootstrap coverage intervals. The talk will present activities from different parts of the course to illustrate this approach, as well as results from preliminary data gathered fall 2010.
