Teaching Statistics Online CAUSEweb Webinar December 12, 2006

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Teaching Statistics OnlineCAUSEweb
WebinarDecember 12, 2006

• Michelle Everson
• University of Minnesota

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Overview

• About the course
• Structure of the course website
• Description of student assignments and
  assessments
• What do students think about the course?
• Things for the online instructor to consider
• Some lessons learned

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The GAISE Recommendations

• According to the GAISE (2005) recommendations,
  introductory statistics courses at the college
  level should
• Emphasize statistical literacy and develop
  statistical thinking
• Use real data
• Stress conceptual understanding
• Foster active learning
• Use technology
• Integrate assessments that are aligned with
  course goals

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Research on Teaching Statistics Online

• How can collaborative activities and technology
  can be integrated into an online statistics
  course?
• Student-to-student interaction and collaboration
• Weekly chats (e.g., Dereshiwsky, 1998)
• Project work (e.g., Davis Chao, 2004 Prater
  MacNeil, 2002 Suanpang, Petocz, Kalceff, 2004)
• Regular group discussions (e.g., Grandzol, 2004
  Jones, 2003)
• Technology
• Courses have used Excel, SPSS, Minitab,
  Cyberstats, and ActivStats (e.g., Davis Chao,
  2004 Dutton Dutton, 2005 Grandzol, 2004
  Harrington, 1999 Lawrence Singhania, 2004
  Mills Xu, 2005 Prater MacNeil, 2002 Utts et
  al., 2003 Zhang, 2004)

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EPSY 3264 Basic and Applied Statistics

• This is a 3-credit, semester-long, upper-level
  undergraduate course
• Students who take the course come from all over
  campus most take the course to fulfill a general
  education requirement
• The course covers the following topics data
  collection and description, normal distributions,
  sampling distributions, methods of statistical
  estimation and inference, correlation, and simple
  linear regression
• The course uses the textbook Mind on Statistics
  (3rd ed., by Utts Heckard), bundled with Minitab

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Course Assignments

• Grades are based on
• Small-group Discussion Assignments (7)
• Homework Assignments (8)
• Quizzes (4)
• Project (1)
• Students also have the opportunity to complete
  non-graded practice activities and extra credit
  assignments

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More on Grades
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Collaborative Group Assignments

• Each student is assigned to a discussion group at
  the beginning of the semester
• Seven small-group discussion assignments are
  completed
• Assignments involve discussing concepts and
  answering questions as a group
• Students must post their own thoughts (by
  midnight on Wednesday) AND respond in a
  meaningful way to what at least one group member
  has posted
• One student volunteers to lead each discussion
  and submit a summary to the instructor by
  midnight on Monday
• Grading 3 points for initial posting, 3 points
  for responding, 1 point if group summary is
  submitted on time

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Group Assignment 1 Designing an experiment

• Students read a 1998 New York Times article about
  a Therapeutic Touch experiment conducted by
  11-year-old Emily Rosa
• Students spend some time critiquing the study
  (i.e., discussing sampling issues, possible
  confounding variables, etc.)
• Students then design a new experiment in order to
  assess the efficacy of the Therapeutic Touch
  method

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Group Assignment 4 Sampling Distributions

• Students work independently through a lab in
  which they use the Sampling SIM program (delMas,
  2001)
• Students then attempt to answer a series of
  questions about the lab as a group
• They talk about what they feel a sampling
  distribution is and why it is important.
• They talk about why they think the sampling
  distribution has the characteristics that it
  does.
• They work as a group to answer a question that
  involves applying knowledge of sampling
  distributions.

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Group Assignment 6 Hypotheses tests

• Each student posts a research question that
  he/she is interested in and that can be addressed
  using either a one-sample, two-sample, or paired
  t-test procedure
• Students talk about
• Why they are interested in this question
• What their null and alternative hypotheses will
  be
• What procedure is most appropriate to use and why
• After students have posted their own research
  question, they each must choose one other
  research question to critique

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More on Homework Assignments

• Students complete 8 homework assignments, each
  worth 10 points
• Assignments involve answering instructor-generated
  questions
• Most assignments involve using Minitab or other
  technology (e.g., Java applets)
• For some assignments, student data is analyzed
  (i.e., data from a class survey that students
  fill out during Week 1 of the course)
• Assignments are submitted as Word attachments
  through WebCT e-mail
• The TA grades each assignment and sends
  individual feedback to the student within one week

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More on the Project

• Each student completes a project that involves
  gathering data from two groups and
  describing/analyzing the data using Minitab
• The project is submitted in parts
• Part 1 Project idea
• Part 2 Project data
• Part 3 Introduction and description of data
• Part 4 Inference (confidence intervals and
  hypothesis testing) and summary/conclusion

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Quizzes

• Every four weeks (25 points each)
• Quizzes are administered online through the WebCT
  quiz tool
• Available from noon on Fridays until noon on
  Mondays
• Students have up to three hours to complete the
  quiz (in one sitting)
• Quizzes consist almost entirely of short-answer
  questions
• The BIG question How do you administer quizzes
  online and ensure that students are not cheating?
  Can you do this????

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Trying to Prevent Cheating

• If all of your quizzes will be online (like they
  are in this course), you can do different things
  to prevent cheating
• Change assessments from semester to semester
• Insist that students complete the quiz in one
  sitting, within a certain period of time
• Use open-ended questions where students must
  explain their answers
• You can also randomize the order in which
  questions are presented to each student
• Ask that students adhere to an honor code of
  some kind

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Student Feedback (Spring and Fall, 2006)

• Students are asked to complete a Midterm Feedback
  Survey during Week 9 and indicate how they feel
  different assignments are contributing to their
  understanding of statistics

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Teaching Online Issues to Consider

• What kind of support will you get in developing
  the course? How much autonomy do you want to
  have?
• How large will your class be? Will you get some
  TA support?
• How will you ensure that students know what is
  expected of them in the online course?
• What do you want YOUR role in the course to be?
• Are you willing to be online often?
• Are you comfortable providing feedback or
  explaining concepts to students via e-mail?
• If you use discussion groups, will you
  participate in group discussions?

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Some Lessons Learned

• Teaching online can be a big time commitment
• Online courses are NOT for everyone!
• You get to know your students in a much different
  way when teaching online
• Students appreciate timely communication with the
  instructor/TA, organization, and consistent
  deadlines
• Online discussion assignments can be a great way
  to learn more about student difficulties/misconcep
  tions
• They motivate ALL students to participate
• Discussions can be monitored for ALL GROUPS from
  start to finish
• Set deadlines discourage students from waiting
  until the last minute to participate

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Thank you!!!!

• Contact information
• Dr. Michelle Everson
• Department of Educational Psychology
• University of Minnesota
• gaddy001_at_umn.edu