Hulsizer M.R., Woolf L.M. A Guide to Teaching Statistics

N.-Y.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. — 262 p.Early in our psychology graduate careers, we each learned an indispensable lesson about success in academia—become a statistics teacher! Regardless of whether you are a social, developmental, or
clinical psychologist, a biologist or sociologist, knowing how to teach statistics makes you a valuable and marketable commodity. Moreover, it is one of the most rewarding teaching opportunities across the curriculum. Few books devoted to teaching highlight the inherent satisfactions associated with teaching statistics. In addition, those of us that teach the course often do little to advertise our successes.
Our hope is that this book will lift the veil of silence that shrouds the teaching of statistics and sparks in others the joy of both teaching and learning statisticsCourse Preparation
Teaching Statistics: A Beginning
So Why Teach Statistics?
Historical Pedagogical Controversies
Who should teach statistics?
Statistics labs and related technology
Content of statistics courses
Statistics in Relation to the Discipline
Sequence of the Class and Topics
Introducing Research Methods within the Context of Statistics
Student Populations
Mathematical ability
Cognitive ability and learning styles
Self-efficacy and motivation
Gender
Helping Your Students Survive StatisticsNuts and Bolts of Teaching Statistics
Syllabus Construction
Textbook Selection
Conceptual orientation
Level of difficulty
Chapter topics and organization
Core formulas and vocabulary
Type of data sets/quality of the exercises
Traditional Versus Electronic Textbooks
Supplemental Materials
Study guides
Companion Web sites
Computer tutorials
Electronic Discussion Boards
Multimedia Tools
Presentation technology
Interactive applications: Java applets, Flash, Shockwave, and HTML
Multimedia simulation programsTheoretical and Pedagogical Concerns
Educational Reform in Statistics
Educational Reform
Statistically Educated Students
Statistical Literacy
Knowledge elements
Dispositional elements
Statistical Thinking
Statistical Reasoning
Misconceptions Impacting the Development of Literacy, Thinking, and Reasoning
Final Thoughts on Statistical Literacy, Thinking, and Reasoning
Assessment
What is the role of assessment?
What is the role of authentic assessment?
Assessment and learning outcomes or goalsIn the Classroom
Conceptual Learning, Active Learning, and Real Data
Conceptual learning versus rote memorization
Active learning
Real data
Instructional Techniques
Lecture
The use of questions
Practice problems and examples
Journal assignments
Activities and demonstrations
Writing assignments
Concept maps
Cooperative learning
Projects
Assessment
Principles of effective assessment
Mastery learning
Confronting Fear and AnxietyTeaching Specific Statistical ConceptsDescriptive Statistics and Bivariate Distributions
Graphing Data
The use of graphs in science
Elements of good design
Human graphical perception
Available graphing methods
Software design
Normal Distribution
Measures of Central Tendency
Measures of Variability
Correlation
Simple Linear Regression
Computer ApplicationsTeaching Hypothesis Testing
Samples, Sampling Distributions, and the Central Limit Theorem
Confidence Intervals
Introduction to Null Hypothesis Testing
Additional Introduction to Hypothesis Testing Concepts
Power
Effect sizes
Type I and Type II errors
Analysis of Variance
Introduction to ANOVA
Violating ANOVA assumptions
Factorial ANOVA
General linear model
The Debate Surrounding Null Hypothesis Significance Testing
Nonparametric Statistics
Computer ApplicationsAdvanced Topics and ApproachesData Analysis in Statistical Education
Teaching with Statistical Software Tools
Data Analysis Packages SPSS
Microsoft Excel
Other commercial data analysis programs
Comparing data analysis programs
Data Analysis Software Textbooks
Using Data Sets in the Classroom
Artificial data sets for the classroom
Reality-based data sets
Finding appropriate reality-based data sets
Drawbacks to using real data setsEndings and Beginnings
Multivariate Statistics
Multiple regression
Logistic regression
Additional multivariate techniques
Special Topics
Ethics
Diversity
Online Statistical Education
Finishing up Any Statistics Course
Final Thoughts