STATISTICS 145 and 145N
About the Course
Statistics 145:
3 lectures (each 48 minutes) and 2 recitations (each 48 minutes) per week
5 credit course
Statistics 145N:
2 lectures (each 78 minutes) and 2 recitations (each 48 minutes) per week
5 credit course
Typical Student Profile
Most students in this class are from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (especially the Psychology Department). There are also many honors students from the Humanities, along with some students in Allied Medicine.
Lecture
- Structure of the course:
- 2 quizzes- generally the 1st one in the 3rd/4th week, and the 2nd one in the 8th week.
- 1 midterm- 5th week.
- 1 final during finals week.
- About 7/8 homework assignments.
- One note card for each quiz.
- One 8.5x11 inches sheet of notes for midterm.
- Two 8.5x11 inches sheets of notes for final.
- Lecturers go over practice questions in lecture before the midterm and final- no practice exams as such.
- Topics covered:
- Data in context.
- Graphs.
- Numerical summaries for quantitative variables.
- Probability- Addition rules, Multiplication rules.
- Sample surveys, Experiments, Observational studies.
- Sampling distribution of sample means and sample proportions.
- Hypothesis testing and confidence intervals for means and proportions.
- Correlation and regression.
- Challenging concepts:
- Independence of 2 categorical variables.
- Law of large numbers and probability.
- Sampling distribution of means and proportions.
- Central Limit Theorem.
- Hypothesis testing.
- Confidence intervals.
- P-values and interpretation.
- Use lots of examples in lecture as well as in recitation to make it easier for the student to understand these concepts.
- At the end of the hypothesis testing and confidence intervals chapters, many TAs hand out flowcharts that make it easy for students to follow the step-by-step procedure for students.
- Things that are taught differently from other courses:
- Use y
instead of x to denote sample mean.
- Law of Large Numbers instead of Law of Averages (as taught is Statistics 135).
- Use the t-distribution for means of small samples and unknown population standard deviation (hypothesis testing and confidence intervals).
- Text used:
- Intro Stats (2nd edition), by Dick DeVeaux, Paul Velleman, and Dave Bock.
- Notes:
- Students buy the lecture notes packet from the bookstores at the beginning of the quarter. These notes have blanks in them which are filled in during lecture. The completed chapter notes are eventually posted on Carmen after the chapter has been covered in lecture.
- Statistical software:
- StatCrunch (use Safari to open on Macintosh computers).
- Course management website:
- Carmen - Notes, grades, some activities posted here.
- Some TAs have their own recitation websites.
- Grade dependent on attendance:
- Not dependent on lecture attendance.
- Helpful tips for new TAs:
- Get in touch with TAs who have lectured this course.
- Read through the notes a couple of days before you teach the material. This gives you enough time to contact the course coordinator and have your doubts cleared.
- Become familiar with the textbook.
- Try different approaches of teaching hard concepts. For example, the “picture” seems to work better than mathematical formulae for finding P-values.
- 2 quizzes- generally the 1st one in the 3rd/4th week, and the 2nd one in the 8th week.
- 1 midterm- 5th week.
- 1 final during finals week.
- About 7/8 homework assignments.
- One note card for each quiz.
- One 8.5x11 inches sheet of notes for midterm.
- Two 8.5x11 inches sheets of notes for final.
- Lecturers go over practice questions in lecture before the midterm and final- no practice exams as such.
- Data in context.
- Graphs.
- Numerical summaries for quantitative variables.
- Probability- Addition rules, Multiplication rules.
- Sample surveys, Experiments, Observational studies.
- Sampling distribution of sample means and sample proportions.
- Hypothesis testing and confidence intervals for means and proportions.
- Correlation and regression.
- Independence of 2 categorical variables.
- Law of large numbers and probability.
- Sampling distribution of means and proportions.
- Central Limit Theorem.
- Hypothesis testing.
- Confidence intervals.
- P-values and interpretation.
- Use lots of examples in lecture as well as in recitation to make it easier for the student to understand these concepts.
- At the end of the hypothesis testing and confidence intervals chapters, many TAs hand out flowcharts that make it easy for students to follow the step-by-step procedure for students.
- Use y instead of x to denote sample mean.
- Law of Large Numbers instead of Law of Averages (as taught is Statistics 135).
- Use the t-distribution for means of small samples and unknown population standard deviation (hypothesis testing and confidence intervals).
- Intro Stats (2nd edition), by Dick DeVeaux, Paul Velleman, and Dave Bock.
- Students buy the lecture notes packet from the bookstores at the beginning of the quarter. These notes have blanks in them which are filled in during lecture. The completed chapter notes are eventually posted on Carmen after the chapter has been covered in lecture.
- StatCrunch (use Safari to open on Macintosh computers).
- Carmen - Notes, grades, some activities posted here.
- Some TAs have their own recitation websites.
- Not dependent on lecture attendance.
- Get in touch with TAs who have lectured this course.
- Read through the notes a couple of days before you teach the material. This gives you enough time to contact the course coordinator and have your doubts cleared.
- Become familiar with the textbook.
- Try different approaches of teaching hard concepts. For example, the “picture” seems to work better than mathematical formulae for finding P-values.
Recitation:
- Structure of recitation:
- Each TA, under the guidance of the lecturer/course coordinator, creates his/her own lesson plans, so the structure varies. Class might include:
- Selected homework problems and other problems from the text.
- Extra practice problems.
- Activities- group/individual.
- Grade dependent on recitation:
- 10% of the student’s grade is based on recitation attendance and participation.
- No specific rule as to how the points are to be determined.
- Different TAs use different rules:
- Base grade on how many recitations a student attended, and his/her attitude in class.
- Base grade on recitation attendance and performance on recitation activities.
- Things that are taught differently from other courses:
- Law of Large Numbers instead of Law of Averages.
- Use the t-distribution for means of small samples and unknown population standard deviation (hypothesis testing and confidence intervals)
- Challenging concepts:
- Independence of 2 categorical variables.
- Law of large numbers and probability.
- Sampling distribution of means and proportions.
- Central Limit Theorem.
- Hypothesis testing.
- Confidence intervals.
- P-values and interpretation.
- Use lots of examples in lecture as well as in recitation to make it easier for the student to understand these concepts.
- At the end of the hypothesis testing and confidence intervals chapters, many TAs hand out flowcharts that make it easy for students to follow the step-by-step procedure for students.
- Helpful tips for new TAs:
- Attend lecture in your first quarter teaching any course. This is the best way to really know what’s being taught and when.
- Talk to experienced TAs. They can tell you what specific problems to expect when teaching a particular topic.
- Get activities, worksheets, and other materials from people who have taught the class before. This will save you a lot of time your first quarter and you will have resources that you know work.
- Become familiar with the textbook.
- Plan ahead.
- Sometimes it helps to very briefly go over topics, concepts and ideas before you work on problems that implement these. Students may have forgotten the concepts from lecture and may need a little “refreshing.”
- Each TA, under the guidance of the lecturer/course coordinator, creates his/her own lesson plans, so the structure varies. Class might include:
- Selected homework problems and other problems from the text.
- Extra practice problems.
- Activities- group/individual.
- 10% of the student’s grade is based on recitation attendance and participation.
- No specific rule as to how the points are to be determined.
- Different TAs use different rules:
- Base grade on how many recitations a student attended, and his/her attitude in class.
- Base grade on recitation attendance and performance on recitation activities.
- Law of Large Numbers instead of Law of Averages.
- Use the t-distribution for means of small samples and unknown population standard deviation (hypothesis testing and confidence intervals)
- Independence of 2 categorical variables.
- Law of large numbers and probability.
- Sampling distribution of means and proportions.
- Central Limit Theorem.
- Hypothesis testing.
- Confidence intervals.
- P-values and interpretation.
- Use lots of examples in lecture as well as in recitation to make it easier for the student to understand these concepts.
- At the end of the hypothesis testing and confidence intervals chapters, many TAs hand out flowcharts that make it easy for students to follow the step-by-step procedure for students.
- Attend lecture in your first quarter teaching any course. This is the best way to really know what’s being taught and when.
- Talk to experienced TAs. They can tell you what specific problems to expect when teaching a particular topic.
- Get activities, worksheets, and other materials from people who have taught the class before. This will save you a lot of time your first quarter and you will have resources that you know work.
- Become familiar with the textbook.
- Plan ahead.
- Sometimes it helps to very briefly go over topics, concepts and ideas before you work on problems that implement these. Students may have forgotten the concepts from lecture and may need a little “refreshing.”