Welcome to the PracStat Zone

(Practical Statistics, Period D)
Web address shortcut for this page: http://www.modd.net/1112prac

Are you nervous when you see NCWEE? concerned when you see CIRC? perturbed when you see PBC? Visit Mr. Hansen’s fabled abbreviations page to make sense of those cryptic markings you see on your papers.

 

Schedule at a Glance (see archives for older entries)
Written assignments should follow the HW guidelines.

 

F 5/18/012

Field trip to the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, MD (adjacent to the NSA parking lot). We will leave at 8:00 a.m. sharp from the service road near the Martin Gym.

* * * NORMAL DRESS CODE (BLAZER AND TIE) IS IN EFFECT DURING THE FIELD TRIP. * * *

During the bus ride to and from Fort Meade, you may remove your blazer if you wish.

If you attend the field trip, you are excused from A-F period classes. If you cannot attend the field trip, then you must attend all classes as usual and write up problems 1 through 5 from the Mathematical Scavenger Hunt. In that case, your paper will be collected on Monday.

 

M 5/21/012

No class.

 

T 5/22/012

HW due (only for those who did not attend the field trip): problems 1 through 5 from the Scavenger Hunt.

 

W 5/23/012

HW due: Read Chapter 7 (pp. 125-150) of Painting with Numbers. Reading notes are required, as always. Reading notes may be collected. Copying of reading notes is not permitted. Violators may be sent to the honor council. If you are unable to finish the reading, then do as much as you can, and keep a time log.

 

Th 5/24/012

HW due: Finish Chapter 7 (pp. 125-150) and start reading Chapter 10. Reading notes are required. Reading notes may be collected. Copying of reading notes is not permitted. Violators may be sent to the honor council.

 

 

Essential Links:
--
STA School Handbook
-- RVLS (Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics): One of the best sites anywhere for statistics! Here you’ll find a complete college statistics course (complete with clickable glossary and great case studies), simulations, and some excellent analysis tools.
-- Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics (University of Alabama at Huntsville)
-- StatCrunch 3.0 (formerly WebStat): An on-line statistical computing package (requires Java)

TI-83 Links:
--
CINT (converts confidence interval from interval notation to the more convenient “estimate ± m.o.e.” format)
-- INVT (inverse t) program written by Mr. Hansen and the Class of 1999
-- CHISQGOF (Chi-Square Goodness of Fit) program also written by Mr. Hansen and the Class of 1999
-- CSDELUXE (Chi-Square Deluxe): combines CHISQGOF and STAT TESTS C into one package; written by Mr. Hansen for the Class of 2003
-- Modifications to SCATRBOX program so that it returns the LSRL equation at the end (follow-on to a stat teacher workshop I attended on 12/5/2001)
-- David Pachner’s statistical test and confidence interval files for the TI-83 (added 4/16/2001; not reviewed by Mr. Hansen for accuracy)
-- TI-83 programs from Texas Instruments

Philosophical Links:
-- In praise of Bayes: a very readable overview of the tension between the standard (“frequentist”) approach to probability and the Bayesian view

Controversial Links:
-- Does an elite college really pay? Article addresses the issue of whether you would do better financially if you simply invested the difference in tuition price.
-- Does traditional hypothesis testing actually make sense? Article questions whether the entire second semester of our course is a waste of time . . .
-- Are law schools cooking their ranking statistics? Every high school statistics student should read this (and maybe a second time, four years later).

Fun Links:
-- Guessing correlation coefficients by eye
-- Another correlation game (takes longer to load, but allows you to achieve fame if you score in the top 20 worldwide)
-- Average age at death for rock stars is 36.9 (vs. 75.8 for the overall population). . . this site is religiously oriented (and apparently sincere), but the reasoning process is seriously flawed. Can you find the problem?
-- Chance Database Welcome Page (this is the link cited in the 4/4/99 Washington Post Unconventional Wiz column)
-- Psychological probability quiz
-- Male sweat may be good for women’s health (a scholarly article with p- and t-values from 2003, plus an abstract in 2007)
-- Lying with statistics
-- One of the biggest marketing blunders of all time: the New Coke fiasco
-- More fun links on Mr. Hansen’s home page

Serious Links (click here)

Extra Credit (please see me if interested):
-- American Statistical Association poster or project competition, deadline 4/1/2012 if you desire extra credit
-- Washington Statistical Society Curtis Jacobs Memorial Prize, deadline 5/4/2012
-- Other extra credit options are available under the Fun Links at modd.net (see Mathcross Puzzles)


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Last updated: 23 May 2012