Week 4

So coming up is the first test. Truth be told I'm a little nervous... as many activities and homework assignments and such that they have, I'm still never quite sure if they are getting it. Sometimes they look at me with such strange faces, sort of a mix between deer-in-the-headlights and "she be crazy". I suppose we'll see. I did an activity with them this past week to motivate sampling distributions and the central limit theorem. Overall it went well, but I've noticed that a few groups tend to slack off instead of work on the in-class assignments. I've also noticed significant drop in attendance the last few weeks. Perhaps people are sick (I was last week) or perhaps they think they can do it on their own or perhaps 11am is just too early for some people. From what I have been told, this is normal for an undergrad class of non-majors. Fortunately, the ones who stay are willing to participate and keep class lively.

Central Limit Theorem Activity Review (someday I will learn to post pdfs here):
I think this is overall a good activity and I will use it in the future.

Pros:

• It used a previous and relatable data set on NFL player weights
• Took them through step-by-step calculations for mean and std. dev. for each new distribution of the sample means of size n.

Cons:

• I think I went a little heavy with the notation in the worksheet, need to eliminate that
• Histograms should keep the same binwidth and x-axis because apparently undergrads don't look at the x-axis values (a lot didn't realize the data range had become smaller because the histograms looked to be the same, but with different x-axes.
• I really wish I could do this in a computer lab and have the students do the samples and such using software. I think getting their hands dirty in how the data are collected will help make the concepts more concrete.

Next post will be after the test and grading of the test... dun dun dunnnnnnn. I will review my first test writing/giving/grading experience (I've graded and given before, just not my own test).