A Probability/Activity Approach for Teaching Introductory Statistics

本建议所解决的问题是如何更有效地教授本科统计学入门课程。传统的统计学课堂讲授和作业形式不利于学生的学习。此外，很难传达抽样分布，区间估计和假设检验的基本经典概念。该项目将为新的“概率/活动”统计课程编写教材。这门课将使用研讨会的形式进行教学，学生通过指导活动学习数据分析，概率和推理材料。本课程的推理内容将使用贝叶斯的观点来教授。将编写一本教科书，其中包含一系列课堂和家庭作业活动，用于学习概率和基本推理的概念。此外，还将编写一本教师手册，介绍重要概念，并就如何鼓励课堂协作学习提出建议。这门新的统计课的成效将根据学生在测量统计基本概念知识的测试中的表现以及学生对统计学科的一般态度来评估。这一新的统计类将与传统的类方面的成功，当然在达到特定的成就目标进行比较。

The problem addressed by this proposal is how to teach an introductory undergraduate statistics course more effectively. The traditional lecture and homework format of teaching statistics are not conducive to learning. In addition, it is hard to communicate the basic classical concepts of sampling distributions, interval estimation, and hypothesis testing. This project will develop curriculum materials for a new "probability/activity" statistics course. This class would be taught using a workshop format in which the students learn data analysis, probability, and inference material by means of directed activities. The inferential content of the class will be taught using a Bayesian perspective. A textbook will be written that contains a collection of classroom and homework activities for learning concepts of probability and elementary inference. In addition, an instructor's manual will be developed that gives a description of the important concepts and advice on how to encourage the collaborative learning in the classroom. The effectiveness of this new statistics class will be assessed by the performance of the students on tests measuring knowledge of basic concepts in statistics and the general attitude of the students about the discipline of statistics. This new statistics class will be compared with the traditional class with respect to the success of the course in reaching particular achievement goals.