It’s in the cards

One surprising thing I’ve learned in the past five years of teaching
undergraduate statistics is that comparatively few young people play
traditional games of chance–cards or dominoes–any more. 
This  conceptual "generation gap" shows up when I start
teaching  basic probability, since I like to use a deck of cards
as my universe for many examples in joint, marginal, and conditional
probability. 

This past semester, I tried something
off-the-wall to bridge that gap in my statistical literacy
course.  With the help of some volunteers from the Stats Club, I
taught the class how to play cribbage.  I favor cribbage because
of its somewhat elaborate counting rules,
which give students practice in calculating combinations.  The
students were delighted, and caught on to the combinatorial link
immediately, so cribbage stays in the course.

Now I read that
I’m not so off-the-wall after all.  It seems that Bill Gates and
Warren Buffet think logic, teamwork, and mathematics skills can be
improved by teaching students to play bridge, and they’re ponying up $1 million to back up their idea.

I like it.  Bridge is a little too time-consuming to use in a
classroom setting, so I’ll stick with cribbage.  But good luck,
fellows.

Tip from Joanne Jacobs.