This summer/Christmas break it has been my pleasure to help a young woman who is struggling with statistics, and it has prompted me to ask people who teach postgraduate statistical methods – WTF are you doing? Louise (name changed) is a … Continue reading →
Maths is right or wrong – end of discussion – or is it? In 1984 I was a tutor in Operations Research to second year university students. My own experience of being in tutorials at University had been less than inspiring, … Continue reading →
I’ve been thinking lately…. Sometimes it pays to stop and think. I have been reading a recent textbook for mathematics teachers, Dianne Siemon et al, Teaching mathematics: foundations to middle years (2011). On page 47 the authors asked me to “Take … Continue reading →
Moving around the education sector My life in education has included being a High School maths teacher, then teaching at university for 20 years. I then made resources and gave professional development workshops for secondary school teachers. It was exciting … Continue reading →
Last week I had a lovely experience. I visited the Hamilton Observatory and Zoo as part of a Statistics excursion with the Year 13 statistics class of Papamoa College. The trip was organised to help students learn about where data … Continue reading →
It is possible to get a passing grade in a statistics paper by putting numbers into formulas and words into memorised phrases. In fact I suspect that this is a popular way for students to make their way through a … Continue reading →
Inference is THE big idea of statistics. This is where people come unstuck. Most people can accept the use of summary descriptive statistics and graphs. They can understand why data is needed. They can see that the way a sample … Continue reading →
Why do we teach about random variables, and why is it so difficult to understand? Probability and statistics go together pretty well and basic probability is included in most introductory statistics courses. Often maths teachers prefer the probability section as … Continue reading →
I have a guilty secret. I really love probability problems. I am so happy to be making videos about probability just now, and conditional probability and distributions and all that fun stuff. I am a little disappointed that we won’t be … Continue reading →
I have a guilty secret. I really love probability problems. I am so happy to be making videos about probability just now, and conditional probability and distributions and all that fun stuff. I am a little disappointed that we won’t be … Continue reading →
