Restructuring an Elementary Statistics Course for the General Education Audience

• Activity Number: 293
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Yvonne Zubovic*+ and Chand Chauhan
• Companies: Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne and Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne
• Keywords: statistics education ; activity-based ; critical thinking

Abstract

In a typical elementary statistics course, students are introduced to: sampling methods and designing experiments, descriptive statistics, probability, and inferential statistics. Many students learn the content by doing several problems of a similar type. Although repetition is important in learning, this skill-and-drill approach does not address our critical thinking objectives. In addition, with a diverse general education audience, we often face challenges of teaching students who are underprepared, lack confidence, and do not see the subject's relevance.

How do we promote critical thinking and developing an appreciation for statistics? How do we address the challenges mentioned previously? We propose adopting an activity-based approach in the general education statistics class. The content will emerge as students work on carefully selected context-rich problems and projects which can be addressed through multiple perspectives. The authors discuss the course design process, and the decisions made to address the course objective, the order of and emphasis given to topics, connectedness of concepts, the nature of activities, assessment methods, and related issues.