Worksheet Wednesday - Summer Statistics Surprise!

I hope your summer has been enlightening, relaxing, and/or lazy, whatever your preference may be. I've been focusing on two big events, planning and preparing for my wedding at the end of August, and teaching a summer Statistics night class. The former has been stressful, challenging, and rewarding... as has the later actually. I don't think students enjoyed the class much (summer, night, 8-week class), but I'm hoping they'll keep a few of the lessons in mind as they continue their academic careers.

To help you in your future Statistics classes (either as an instructor or a student) below are my In-Class Activities. Most of them are what I call 'call and response activities', where I usually gave these out during lecture, and in-between direct instruction, scaffolded examples, and discussions, I would have students complete a few of these questions. I would 'call' with doing a simple example, and they would 'respond' by doing a similar example. At the end of lecture they would then be responsible for completing them before the next test. I tended not to give makeups for these activities, as I would drop the lowest two.

MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 01 - 2.7 - Standard Deviation
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 03 - 6.1-6.4 - Experiments
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 04 - 7.1-7.3 - Empirical Probability
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 05 - 7.4-7.5 - Theoretical Probability
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 06 - 8.1-8.3 - Discrete and Continuous Variables
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 07 - 8.4-8.6 - Normal Random Variables Activity
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 08 - 9.1, 9.3 - Sampling Distributions
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 09 - 9.10, 9.2 - Central Limit Theorem
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 10 - 9.4, 9.6 - Applications of the Central Limit Theorem

If you do use them, feel free to share with me either through email or commenting below how the activity went.

Worksheet Wednesdays - Trigonometric Trickiness

For this week I have a fairly basic in-class trigonometry activity, having students develop a deep understanding of these ratios, and to use them in application questions. During lecture I completed a number of 'naked' examples, without an authentic context. Here I have them start solving application questions using trigonometry with some fairly basic questions. I do include one question that increases the difficulty, but with a few hints dropped students seemed to get the basic idea.

As students work on in-class activities I usually go around the room and answer any questions they have. I do so using the Socratic Method, answering their questions with questions. They usually find this annoying, me answering their questions with questions, but over time I have noticed that students become more thoughtful with their questions. They anticipate how I will answer their questions, and so modify their phrasing so they are not just asking for numbers of values, but for methods. Near the end of an activity I will hear many more "How do I..." type questions than "What is the value for...". This demonstrates a greater appreciation of method, something I think is the goal of all mathematics educators.

Right Triangle Trigonometry - Students first confirm a few trigonometric ratios for a randomly drawn right triangle, and then answer a few application questions. Granted, it is only two pages, but if this is done the first day the sine, cosine, and tangent functions are defined, it will take 30 minutes to 1 hour.

If you have any feedback, or if you use these worksheets, let me know! Feel free to post a comment below, or email me directly.

Worksheet Wednesdays - Sequences and Series In-Class Activities

This is the inaugural post of Worksheet Wednesdays where I will post some of the worksheets, in-class activities, quizzes, and other assessment items I have develop in teaching college mathematics courses. Today will be a twofer, two in-class activities for my Calculus III course.

I have students start in-class activities during class, but they are free to complete them afterwards. In order to receive credit for completing them I have them show it to me before the next test. When they do I usually go over it with them, providing for some 1-on-1 feedback and developing a repertoire with them. So far this has worked out well for three of my classes, but as I write this it is only Week 2 so that may change. Anyway, on to the worksheets!

Monotonic and Bounded - This activity walks students through a variety of sequences and introduces the idea of monotonic and bounded sequences. They then classify each of those sequences as monotonic and bounded and then see if these sequences are convergent. Students should identify the pattern that all sequences that are monotonic and bounded are convergent, but it is not necessary for a convergent sequence to be monotonic or bounded.

Integral Test - From lecture it was clear that students' integration skills were a bit rusty, if not a bit poor. Thus I created this in-class activity to get students to practice their indefinite, definite, and improper integration skills, and to use the integral test of convergence of a series. There are a few curve balls, and we had a good discussion of how to deal with them.

If you have any feedback, or if you use these worksheets, let me know! Feel free to post a comment below, or email me directly.