teaching
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Bump charts get renamed as SLOPEGRAPHS
Charlie Park has a nice post describing Tufte’s slopegraphs (old chart, new name). Kaiser Fung likes these a lot; he’s been calling them Bump charts. I introduce these to my undergrads when we discuss the paired t test. Tip from kottke.org. Update (16 July). James Kierstead publishes an R implementation. Read more
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Here comes the DYSCALCULA epidemic
Back in grad school, whenever a statistical problem had us stumped, we would joke about having a bad case of dyscalcula, comparing ourselves to dyslexics because the problem was so puzzling we weren’t sure we understood the question, let alone had a clue about finding the answer. Well, dyscalcula is making its real-world debut. Oh Read more
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The Dutch Book, made simple
Briggsy gives a dead-simple explanation for spotting and profiting from a Dutch Book set of odds. Even an undergrad can do it! Read more
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I gotta get busy on my lecture videos!
On his Forbes blog, Jerry Bowyer espies an Internet iceberg dead ahead of Titanic U. …you and your iPod (or desktop) can listen to the smartest people in the world give interesting lectures on the most important topics for free, or you can pay lots of money to hear an inarticulate and resentful grad student Read more
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Flipping education!
The Amazing Khan does it again with his suggestion to do lectures OUTSIDE class, and “homework” IN class. The guy’s a madman. A wonderful, gifted madman. Update (28 March). This must be a big deal inedeed if even cow grazier Gary Jones gets intrigued. Read more
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Maybe education isn’t the solution to every problem
Frank Fleming thinks our education system is on the wrong track: Children are taught for 13 years in grade school, and many people want everyone to get at least 4 years of college on top of that. And what exactly do we get out of all this? If someone told me I was going to Read more
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College-educated? Show me.
Undergraduate assessment is about to get a lot more attention. I’m looking for more outside assessments like the Actuarial Exams and the SAS certificates. Read more
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A fair 3-way choice using coin tosses
I’d like to make a fair and random choice among 3 alternatives, but the only randomizing device I have available is a coin to toss. Worse yet, I suspect the coin may be biased. What to do? Read more
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Data mining for cheaters
Using data forensics to detect cheaters on standardized tests..is there anything statistics can’t do? Tip from the Geek Press. Read more
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The Random Texan 