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Keeping Students Engaged

Keeping Students Engaged. Kari Lock Morgan STAT 790: Teaching Statistics 10/17/12. Make Them Want to Pay Attention. Choose examples that will be interesting to students (or let them choose the example!) Generate curiosity, and make discoveries Humor

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Keeping Students Engaged

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  1. Keeping StudentsEngaged Kari Lock Morgan STAT 790: Teaching Statistics 10/17/12

  2. Make Them Want to Pay Attention • Choose examples that will be interesting to students (or let them choose the example!) • Generate curiosity, and make discoveries • Humor • Teach material that will be helpful for problem sets and exams, and mention that • Show your own enthusiasm for statistics • Keep the focus on the students • Go at a pace they can follow • Think before making all necessary information available later

  3. Article • I am going to do my best to hold your attention until the very last word of this column. Actually, I know it’s futile. Along the way, your mind will wander off, then return, then drift away again. But I can console myself with some recent research on the subject of mind wandering. Mind wandering is not necessarily the sign of a boring column. It’s just one of the things that make us human. … Zimmer, Carl. “Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out is a Crucial Mental State,” The Brain, Discover Magazine, 6/15/09.

  4. Involved Students = Engaged Students • Making them want to pay attention may not be enough • Involving your students forces them to be engaged! • Involve your students in any way you can • Think, pair, share • Clickers • Live demos • Class Activities • Group activities/problems • Guided handouts • Let them generate their own data • Participation

  5. Think, Pair, Share • Think of a professor you’ve had who was particularly engaging • What did he/she do to make class so engaging?

  6. Clickers • Students click in answers to multiple choice questions • Clickers are linked to students, so can be used for mini quizzes, graded participation • Easy way to… • Get everyone thinking • Assess whether the class is with you • Stimulate discussion • Let students know how they compare • Force students to engage with the material • Collect data

  7. “Easy” Questions • Straightforward, relatively quick • Students should be able to get the answer • Purpose: • INVOLVE the students! • Gauge student understanding • Solidify concepts and definitions • Review/recap material • Quick assessment

  8. The formula for a 95% CI uses 1.96 as a multiplier of the SE. If we instead wanted a 99% CI, would we use a number higher or lower than 1.96? • Higher: 257584 • Lower: 258275 • The Same: 258276 • No Clue: 372023 Text answer to 37607 Chart

  9. What’s the expected return of this portfolio? • 4%: 524705 • 6%: 524746 • 12%: 524747 • I need more information: 524748 Text answer to 37607 Chart Need to know the price of each share

  10. Discussion Questions • Questions require thought and reasoning • You don’t expect all students to get the answer • Ask once, do not give the answer • Call on students to defend their answers • Have a class discussion, or discuss in pairs • Ask the same question again • Results: • Students very engaged in discussions • On the second polling, many more correct answers • Students form their own opinions with reasoning • Students hear the reasoning of their peers, helping them figure out the correct answer • Students have to convince others

  11. Answers when asked the first time…

  12. Answers after discussion…

  13. First red card • Gets a bag of reese’s pieces!

  14. Jelly Beans Cause Acne! http://xkcd.com/882/

  15. http://xkcd.com/882/

  16. Live Demos • Do something other than just lecture • Examples: • First red card from stacked deck • Jelly Beans cause acne cartoon • Better than just lecturing, but not quite as good as having the students do something…

  17. Class Activities • Try to ensure every student is involved • For example, make everyone contribute to a class dot plot • Great because you can guide the activity • Should clarify a particular concept – always save time to discuss afterwards • Examples • Reese’s Pieces for sampling distribution, confidence intervals, bootstrapping • Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for random sampling

  18. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  19. Can you avoid sampling bias? • Actual average: 4.29 letters • People are TERRIBLE at selecting a good sample, even when explicitly trying to avoid sampling bias! • We need a better way…

  20. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Fall 2011: Spring 2012:

  21. Group Activities/Problems • Have students work in pairs or small groups • Activities should not be too long, because everyone works at a different pace. Don’t want some students waiting forever for other students • Can do a mandatory part and an “if time” part

  22. The Pygmalion Effect Teachers were told that certain children (chosen randomly) were expected to be “growth spurters,” based on the Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition (a test that didn’t actually exist). These children were selected randomly. The response variable is change in IQ over the course of one year. • Source: Rosenthal, R. and Jacobsen, L. (1968). “Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development.” Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

  23. The Pygmalion Effect Does this provide evidence that merely expecting a child to do well actually causes the child to do better? (a) Yes (b) No If so, how much better? *s1 and s2 were not given, so I set them to give the correct p-value

  24. Guided Handouts • A more in depth activity, often in pairs or small groups • While students are working, you can circulate and answer questions • Example: • Correlation exploration • Craps

  25. Cars Data Handout • Quantitative Variables: • Weight (pounds) • City MPG • Fuel capacity (gallons) • Page number (in Consumer Reports) • Time to go ¼ mile (in seconds) • Acceleration time from 0 to 60 mph • Relationships • Weight vs. CityMPG • Weight vs. FuelCapacity • PageNum vs. Fuel Capacity • Weight vs. QtrMile • Acc060 vs. QtrMile • CityMPG vs. QtrMile

  26. Car Associations

  27. Car Correlations (-.91) (.89) (-.45) (.51) (.99) (-.08) What are the properties of correlation?

  28. Collect Data • Examples: • ESP experiment for hypothesis testing • Rock paper scissors for chi-square tests • 5 seconds of exercise and pulse rate for experimental design • Proportion of tongue rollers for confidence intervals

  29. Encourage and Stimulate Participation • Set the tone early… • First Class • Have them introduce themselves (to you and to their classmates) • Make it clear immediately that you want them to talk • Candy for talking? • Before Each Class • Talk to them informally before class • Learn names! (roster with pictures on STORM) • Know your students • Encourage questions • When answering, keep the class in mind • Ask questions and… • WAIT for the students to answer • NEVER treat any response as “stupid”

  30. Make Students Think! • Give the students something mentally activeto do… don’t let them just passively listen to you talk • Give them something to think about and ensure that they actually think • Ask students to write down an answer or guess • Pair and share, group work • Use show of hands or clickers to quickly get everyone involved • Regularly ask for and encourage questions, comments, and thoughts • Have them work problems in class

  31. People have many different strategies for keeping students engaged… experiment and find what works for you • It’s often not what you do, but how you do it • How are YOU going to keep your students engaged?

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