In addition to teaching Biostatistics at the Mayo Graduate School, I have had the opportunity to teach statistics twice at UW-Eau Claire. I taught two sections of Math 246: Introduction to Statistics, a course for all majors, and I am teaching Math 345: Probability and Statistics, a one-semester, calculus-based introductory course for math and other science majors.
In Math 246, I organized the topics around data types (e.g., qualitative versus quantitative) to highlight the connections between confidence intervals and hypothesis testing for each type of data. I provided students with real data sets on a variety of topics to analyze in Minitab for their weekly homework assignments, and gave students experience with the full statistical process through the final project, in which they researched a question of their choice using Dr. Shonda Kuiper's Memorathon game.
In Math 345, students work with real data in Minitab on the homework and in computer labs, and they are working individually or in pairs to research questions of their choice for the final project. I am looking forward to the results of their analyses, on questions that range from "What socioeconomic factors are associated with GPA among students at UW-Eau Claire?" to "What factors are associated with successful Kickstarter projects?" This term I am also testing a new strategy to allow students to spend more time in class solving problems, and less time writing problems in their notes: I provide copies of the problems students will solve in class, along with space to take notes, on the course management system D2L, so students can print them out before class. An example for the introduction to the Central Limit Theorem (CLT.docx) is available below.
Below are examples of short video lectures I made for my Math 345 students to watch while I attended a 3-day conference. In the future, I would like to develop more short video lectures on statistics, so my students can learn the introductory material on each topic before they come to class, and spend more time in class applying and practicing what they've learned.