Getting the Best from Teaching Statistics

Getting the Best from Teaching Statistics 

  Teaching Statistics regularly publishes articles to help those teaching any type of statistics to pupils aged 9 to 19. Getting the Best from Teaching Statistics  brings together about 50 of the best articles from volumes 15 to 21 of Teaching Statistics .  The articles are classified under the headings: 

  • Preface
  • Students’ Understanding
  • Statistical Topics
  • Primary School Focus
  • Practical Activities
  • Using Computers and IT 
  • Statistics at Work
  • Probability Topics
  • Lessons from History
  • Miscellany
  • The C Oswald George Prize

Preface
In February, May and September each year around 1200 subscribers worldwide receive the latest issue of Teaching Statistics packed with the latest ideas. The first editor - Peter Holmes - assembled a collection of the best articles from Volumes 1-5 and the second editor - David Green – did the same for Volumes 6-14. Both books proved very popular and are now sold out. We have followed these successes with this book which is compiled from Volumes 15-21 which appeared under the editorships first of Neville Hunt and subsequently Gerald Goodall. We have been assisted in the difficult selection task by the Editorial Board. It includes all articles which have won the C. Oswald George prize administered by the Royal Statistical Society for the best article in each volume.    

This book is published at the start of the new millennium seeking to carry forward the very best ideas from the last. There is a growing interest in data handling (or statistics) worldwide and we hope that this book can assist those who have the exciting task of promoting this activity in school and college curricula.    

The Teaching Statistics Trust was established in 1978 for the purpose of furthering study and research in statistical education for the public benefit. The first work of the Trust was to establish the journal Teaching Statistics, the first issue of which was published in January 1979. Sponsoring bodies were the Applied Probability Trust, the Institute of Statisticians, the International Statistical Institute and the Royal Statistical Society.     

The journal seeks to help teachers of geography, biology, the sciences, social science, business studies, economics, etc. by showing how statistical ideas can illuminate their work and how to make proper use of statistics in their teaching. It is also directed towards those who are teaching statistics courses or mathematics-with-statistics courses. The emphasis of the articles is on teaching and the classroom. The aim is to inform, entertain, encourage and enlighten all who use statistics in their teaching or who teach statistics.    

We would be delighted to hear from you and in particular to receive an article for the journal which meets the above aims.    

For general enquiries about subscribing to the journal contact Teaching Statistics, at the RSS Centre for Statistical Education,   

Contributions for the journal should be sent to the Editor, Mr Roger Johnson, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science,South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 501 East St Joseph Street, Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA.  

Email : .    

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Section 1 – Students’ Understanding

Teaching Independence (P)   H Dahl

Secondary Students’ Concepts of Probability  R Madsen

Statistics and Intuition for the Classroom (P)  S Chatterjee and J Hawkes

Understanding Conditional Probability  S Tomlinson and R Quinn

Data Handling: An Introduction to Higher Order Processes  J Watson and R Callingham

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Section 2 - Statistical Topics

Assumptions are important: the Paired and Pooled t test  J C W Rainer

Learning about Extremes  S Coles

Estimating the Size of a Population  R Johnson

Sampling Errors in Political Polls  Z M Kmietowicz

Don’t get t out of proportion!  G Goodall

A  Multiple Regression Project  R Johnson

Exploring Sampling  J Nicholson

Testing for Differences between two brands of Cookies  R C Magel

The BioSS Challenge – A demonstration of sampling bias  (P)  T S Smart

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Section 3 - Primary School Focus

Graphing in the Primary School  L Pereira Mendoza

Primary Data  A Bramwell

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 Section 4  Practical Activities

Teaching by Design  A Bowman

A Tale of Six Cities  N Hunt

Don’t discard last week’s TV Guide!  A Graham,

Tree Slugs  C du Feu

How Manv Fish are in the Pond?  R Johnson

Asking Sensitive Questions in Surveys  P Hutchinson

How long is a piece of string? (P)  R Riddiough & J McColl

Lawn Toss: Producing Data On-the-Fly  E Nordmoe

Why Stratify  T Hodgson & J Borkowski

BUSTLE:  a Bus Simulation (P)  J Appleby    

A Sort of Statistics Lesson  C du Feu

Coke or Pepsi?  M Levine & R H Rolwing

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Section 5 Using Computers and IT

Teaching Statistics through Resampling  C Ricketts & J Berry

How Long will it take to Build Jack’s House  R Riddiough & J McColl!

Using Spreadsheets to Calculate Prob(X+Y = w)  J C Turner

Testing Colour Proportions of M&M’s  R W Johnson

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Section 6 Statistics at Work

Contributions of Biometrics to the Developing World (P)  M Darmi & R Poultney

Patients. Medicines. Policies and Statistics  S Day

Determining Adequate Sample Sizes  A Fielding

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Section 7 Probability Topics 

Recognising Randomness  D Green

Coincidences: the truth is out there  R Matthews & F Stones

Overlap Probabilities and Delay Detonators  N T Diamond

Squaring the Circle – statistically speaking  P Glaister

A Probability Game  J Melrose

A Probability Game – letter  R W Johnson

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Section 8 Lessons from History 

The Analysis of Experimental Data  D V Lindley

Statisticians have a word for it  D Bissell

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Section 9 Miscellany

The World’s 100 largest Cities  D Drew & D Steyne

The ‘Golden Egg’ (P)  H Kimber

Scoring Patterns in Rugby League  J Croucher

Lotteral Thinking?  R Watson

Murphy’s Law of Maps (P)  R Matthews

Countering Indifference Using Counterintuitive Examples  L Lesser

Industrial Visits Work  B Gibson

How Random was the 1998 World Cup – letter  G Simpson

Directional Data  G Goodall

Note:   C Oswald George prize-winning articles are indicated by (P)

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The C Oswald George Prize
Gerald Goodall (Editor. “Teaching Statistics”)  

In the autumn of each year, the members of the Editorial Board of “Teaching Statistics” have the enviable task of reviewing all the articles published in the journal during that year. They then have the further task of deciding which is the best article, for the annual award of the C Oswald George Prize. There is, incidentally, an established custom that any articles written by current members of the Editorial Board are not eligible for consideration. The prize consists of a modest sum of money, but it is hoped that the prestige of winning the prize is worth much more than the actual prize itself. 
   
Exactly what is meant by “best” is not easy to define. The Board looks for articles that are immediately interesting, attractively written and of direct relevance to the real classroom situation. Depending on the context of the article, a degree of open-endedness is also welcome so that there are possibilities of extension. However, all this presents a problem, albeit the rather happy one that all articles share at least most of these characteristics, so it is no easy matter to pick a winner. Indeed, it occasionally happens that the prize is shared between two articles.
   
All prize-winning articles in the years covered by this compendium are included in it and are specially identified in the index. 
   
Who was C Oswald George?
 
My co-editor of this compendium, and one of my predecessors as Editor of the journal. David Green. wrote a short note about the prize in the autumn 1991 issue. I have been able to update this making use of some material found in the archives of the Royal Statistical Society. The story goes back to the former Institute of Statisticians, which merged with the Royal Statistical Society in 1993 to create the combined Society that exists today.
 
The Institute was formed in 1948. initially under the title of The Association of Incorporated Statisticians Ltd. Dr George. an eminent government statistician, was one of the original founders and then Chairman for many years. He donated a sum of money for establishment of a prize which was initially for “the best paper. especially submitted by younger authors, in the field of applied statistics”.
Later the prize was associated with the Institute’s professional examinations. When “Teaching Statistics” was established in 1979. the Institute very generously decided to make the award available for the best article in this journal. Sadly. Dr George himself did not live to see these developments. He was killed by a fire at his home in the mid-1960s.  
 
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