Stat Chat
An informal but informative monthly get-together of local statistics educators.
Coordinators:
Joan Garfield, University of Minnesota || Julie Leger, St. Olaf College || Danny Kaplan, Macalester College

Typical Meeting schedule: 6-8 PM, usually on the last Tuesday of the month.
6:00 Dinner (provided by that month's host)
6:30 Data for dessert --- presentation of a dataset or method for collecting data that might be useful for a class.
6:40 Presentation  ... segueing into general discussion
8:00 Adjourn
RSVP to help us plan for the meal, but last-minute decision-makers are always welcome!

Location
Olin/Rice Science Center, Macalester College (see 9-10 on map), Saint Paul, Minnesota 55116

Quick directions: From Snelling, turn West onto St. Clair, then right through the campus gateway entrance.  Follow the drive for about 200 yds.  Olin/Rice is the large brick building near the wind turbine.  Parking is free and usually readily available at the Stat Chat meeting times.
Next meeting

Tuesday 28 November

Dinner [provided by D. Kaplan]

Data & Dessert [provided by Julie Legler]

Main Topic: Simulation

 We'll have a couple of examples to demonstrate, but mainly we would like the session to be a discussion.  So ... bring materials or questions or issues you want to discuss about using simulations.  Depending on your interests:

Bring an example to demonstrate of how you use your favorite simulation

Or bring a statistical topic for which you are looking for a good simulation

Or bring a writeup of a good activity that uses simulation

Or bring a favorite resource for simulations

Schedule for 2006-7

Tuesday 26 September. Topic: AIMS Project --- Adapting and Implementing Innovative Materials
Tuesday 24 October (one week earlier than usual to avoid Halloween). Topic: Grading Technology
Tuesday 28 November. Topic: Simulation

December - no meeting.

Tuesday 30 January. Topic: Random Walks
Tuesday 27 February. Topic: Connections with other disciplines

March -- date to be determined
April -- date to be determined

Past Meetings

Tuesday 24 October, 6-8 PM

Dinner [provided by Joan Garfield]

Data Dessert  [provided by Paul Roback, Saint Olaf College]
  Files: election04_hout.pdf, election04Sum_hout.pdf, election04Vars_hout.pdf, golf.pdf, FinalProject.doc, Exam 2 takehome.doc, Data and Dessert.doc,
 Florida election data: excel, plain text, minitab
Golf data:  plain text, minitab
Main topic:
GRADING TECHNOLOGY

What we call "grading" is really shorthand for two things: providing students with formative and summative feedback. Formative so that students and instructors can decide where more work needs to be put in, summative because almost instructors are obliged to give end-of-term grades.

For formative feedback it's particularly important to have rapid turnaround so that students and instructors can respond in a timely way. Ideally, we would evaluate student work in every class, with the results of the evaluation available in time to shape the next class or even the next part of the current class.

This is difficult for several reasons, including the workload burden on students and the logistical burden of collecting, marking, and returning work.

That's where "technology" comes in. Part of this technology involves computers and networking. Another part involves the evaluation items themselves, particularly those forms that provide useful but timely feedback, that is, items amendable to automatically being scored.

We will have three discussants:

- Gary Oehlert and colleagues will introduce their developments at UMN.

- Danny Kaplan will demo a free authoring and scoring system, Acroscore, that he and a student developed at Macalester. He will also talk about evaluation items that are informative and can be automatically scored. [A paper by George Cobb about this.]

- Milo Schield, from Augsburg, will discuss items to evaluate statistical literacy. [Readings: 1, 2]

Of clear relevance to the discussion will be on-line test banks such as ARTIST that were presented at Stat Chat last year.

Tuesday 26 September, 6-8 PM at Macalester College

Dinner [provided by Julie Legler, St. Olaf]
During dinner activity from Joan Garfield [link to documents]

Data Dessert [provided by D. Kaplan]
Used car prices: www.cars.com and an assignment based on this site.
Social Security Death Index:
Statistical practice in the non-statistical world: the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs worksheet for the statistical significance of difference in hiring rates.

Main presentation:
Adapting and Implementing Innovative Materials (AIMS)
Developing Lessons aligned with GAISE
Joan Garfield, Bob delMas and Andy Zieffler, University of Minnesota

[Link to Handout]
Abstract: 
We will share some information and materials from our new NSF project, AIMS.
We have developed lesson plans and student handouts for  the introductory statistics course. These materials implement the  new ASA-endorsed Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) for teaching introductory statistics courses (see http://www.amstat.org/education/gaise/).

The AIMS materials involve students in lots of discussion, computer explorations, and small group activities.  We will share our lesson plan format, some sample lesson plans and some sample student handouts.