Description

There are many pedagogical innovations incorporated in these lectures. Among these, there are THREE main differences, and many minor ones. A more complete list of features is given HERE -- Teachers planning to use these materials should definitely read these features.

An outline is attached at the bottom of the page.

The first lecture (L01) is a general introduction to the Islamic approach to knowledge. The next 8 lectures (L02 to L09) form the first unit, which is an introduction to descriptive statistics, but sets the ideas in a format very different from conventional statistics courses.

1. It is assumed that most data will NOT be normally distributed. This makes the mean and SD very bad measures of location and dispersion. Better alternatives are median and IQR. Many other changes in teaching methodology become necessary when we deal with data which is not normally distributed.
2. We treat data as providing CLUES to reality, instead of being the final determinant. Thus data analysis may start by looking at numbers, but must always proceed to looking at the real world implications. Interpretation of statistics is strongly related to the real world situations which generate the numbers. This link is ignored in conventional texts and is emphasized in our treatment in this text.
3. The main idea of the course is that statistics is a branch of RHETORIC. We learn how to make arguments using data and data analysis. There are no final and conclusive answers available from the data. One must ALWAYS add some subjective elements to create an interpretation of the data analyis. By focusing on these subjective elements and by changing them, we can substantially alter the meanings of any given data analysis.

All materials are within BOX folders. AT the right hand side upper corner, there is a button marked options. If you click in it, it will present you with an option to download the entire folder. This is the most convenient way to download the entire contents of the folder, which are quite voluminous, occupying many megabytes.

THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO WATCH/LISTEN to the lectures.

Easy way, recommended. Download and install Open Office. Open the file Lxx*.odp in Open Office and just play the slides, as long as the MP3 files are in the same folder, the presentation will automatically go slide by slide and play the accompanying sound file for each slide.

More hassle, but not difficult. Download the PPT presentation and the accompanying slides. Go through the presentation manually, For each slide, play the accompanying sound file which is clearly marked as LxxSyy.mp3 where xx is the Lecture Number and yy is the SLIDE number.

TWO ADDITIONAL WAYS HAVE BEEN ADDED: Movies are now available for directly watching on internet, on my personal website -- asadzaman.net. Furthermore, Microsoft Powerpoint presentations with EMBEDDED sound files are also available for download from same source.

FEEDBACK: Students complain that the English is too complex -- they cannot understand the audio part of the lectures.

SOLUTION: Teacher should download ONLY the powerpoint AND the TRANSCRIPT of the lecture. The Transcript is a written record of the audio portion of the file. If the Teacher keeps the printout of the transcript in front, he/she can do the presentation themselves, referring to the transcript as a reminder of the points to be covered in presenting the slide. This way, they can use any (level of) language to present the materials. AFTER having presented the material in class, the student should be encouraged to listen to the lecture on his/her own separately; on the second round, they should find it much easier to understand and follow the English.