Grading, Late Work, and AI in an Online Stats Class: What I am trying.

With another academic year comes another set of questions I have to answer; What assignments do I want students to complete? How? When? Why? What if they use AI? How can I structure my courses to reduce the likelihood of students turning to AI? In this post I'll share three decisions I've come to for the online statistics course I am teaching this fall; what and how I am grading, what are my late policies, and what are the consequences of unauthorized AI use?

How and What I am Grading

Below is what I have written in my syllabus for what I'll be grading. Much of this is informed by Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman, and Uncommon Sense Teaching by Oakley, Rogowsky, and Sejnowski. 

Grade Composition

Grades are generated from assignments and assessments that have students apply course information, in order to develop their understanding of statistics. Parentheses () include the percentage of the total course grade this component makes up. 

This preamble seemed important to me to clarify that the goal is to have students apply statistics. I don't want or need AI to answer any question. 

Note-Taking Assignments (17%) – To start the learning process students are asked to take handwritten notes on the textbook before class, as this has demonstrated greater learning gains than typed notes.[1] Students may elect to take handwritten notes on paper or on a digital device, however no screenshots and/or copying and pasting of text is allowed. You’ll be asked to try different note taking methods, answer questions, and find ways of taking notes that work best for you. Grading will be done according to a rubric that is focused on taking good notes, not being perfect or correct.  Due Tuesdays and Thursdays by 12:00 PM (noon).

To get students thinking about the course material I have them take handwritten notes from the textbook. Is this antiquated, old-fashioned, and time consuming? Yes, and that's the point. Learning is slow, reading takes time, and the pace of both compliment each other. 

Discussion Forums (17%) - To continue the learning process, students will engage with the course material in a collaborative setting. A variety of discussion forums will be presented throughout the term, and students will be expected to discuss the course topics with other students and the instructor. Grading will be done according to a rubric that is focused on collaborating and learning with your colleagues, not being perfect or correct. Initial and response posts due alternating Wednesdays by 10:00 PM.

I'm a little unsure what I want these discussion forums to look like. I would like at least one asking students to find statistics in an article or video they find interesting, and then have students ask questions in replies.  

Homework (17%) – To practice applying course concepts, and recall of course ideas, students will complete homework assignments on WAMAP. Grading is done on correctness of answers and solutions. Due Mondays by 10:00 PM.

Starting with a homework set in WAMAP from a colleague (Thanks Allie!) I've aligned them to the learning outcomes from the textbook that I am assessing. I do have a running list of questions I need to write and add, but that is something I can juggle later on.  

Quizzes (10%) - You will have five open-book, open-note quizzes throughout the course. Some questions will ask you to write and submit your work.  These may be taken twice and the highest score is recorded. Grading is done on correctness of answers and solutions. Due every other Friday by 10:00 PM. 

Professor Tip: It will be important to keep current with the course material to do well on quizzes. If you don’t do well on a quiz take this as a signal that you should change something about your approach to the course.

The major assessment of the course is project based (more below) and I'd like students to answer a few questions to apply what they have learned. I am using this format from a colleague (Thanks Kate!).  

Excel Skills/Applications (15%) - This section (version) of MATH&146 is intended to help Business Administration, Accounting, and other business students develop their skills with Excel. This set of ten (10) Excel assignments were developed in collaboration with business faculty, and will have students answer statistics questions with Excel. The assignments consist of an Excel Skills assignment that has students use and explore various functions within Excel, and then Excel Applications, having students use Excel formulas and features to answer statistics questions. Due weekly on Fridays by 10:00 PM.

I really like these assignments, and have yet to run them through AI... 

☆ Course Project (24%) - To make course concepts and principles relevant students will pose a question, and spend the term answering it using statistics. There are five parts to the course project, with each part building on the last. 

• Course Project Part 1 (2%) - Explore the Data & Variables
• Course Project Part 2 (3%) - Statistics & Graphs
• Course Project Part 3 (4%) - Relationships Between Variables
• Course Project Part 4 (5%) - Confidence Intervals
• Course Project Part 5 (5%) - Peer Review with Video Presentation
• Course Project (5%) - Culminating Project with Video Presentation

Students will be sent a single Google Doc to write their submissions. Only that file will be accepted for grading. It is expected that students will add onto their project parts for each submission. At the end of the term students will have a completed article describing a research question, detailing their attempts at completing it, and summarizing their statistics and conclusions. 

Thanks to Jennifer Ward, Allie Dykes, and Kate Cook for sharing this project and their iterations. I will be creating a single Google doc using my own account for students to write their submissions. Revision history will be used if I suspect AI use. 

Recommended Questions – Within each of the Weekly Overview pages on Canvas, there will be a set of recommended questions for each Learning Objective.

Professor Tip: Practice makes progress. While the above assignments do not calculate into your course grade, they will be graded to provide feedback as to your understanding of the course material, and progress towards learning mathematical notation and formatting. Failure to complete them will negatively impact your ability to participate in class activities and complete assessments.

This is something I'll create on a weekly basis in order for students to get additional practice.  

Late Work Policies

I've spent a lot of time thinking about late work policies and how to be equitable. After conversations with colleagues (Thanks Hannah and Michelle!) I am instituting a few hard due dates for discussion forums and quizzes. In both cases they will be open for quite a bit of time, and students can reattempt Quizzes. 

Late Work Policies

• If students do not complete an assignment by its due date, it is LATE. For all LATE assignments, a zero (0) will be entered into the gradebook. This is to ensure that students understand their current grade, and can take informed steps to improve.

One thing I see many instructors get in trouble with in Canvas is not entering zero grades after a due date. Canvas can only record a student's grade based on what is entered, so if you only enter a 100% on that intro assignment from Week 1 a student will (wrongfully) think they have a 100% in the course in Week 10.  

• Students will have until Wednesday, December 10th at 10:00 PM to complete LATE Note-Taking Assignments and Homework. Note that it is in your best interest to complete assignments on time, as other course components will rely on knowing this information. Any submission after this date will be marked zero (0).
  Professor Tip: The previous two points might seem to contain contradictory messages (allowing  and “complete assignments on time”) but I do not see them that way. I want to provide students guidance as to when to complete assignments, and I want to give you some flexibility IF you need it. Using this late work policy 2-3 times during a term is fine. Using this late work policy once a week or more is a signal that something you are doing needs to change.

This is what I have used in the past and am wondering if drawing attention to this fact helps or hurts students. I want to provide flexibility, and many students need firm deadlines... To be honest I don't feel like I should be responsible to 'motivate' students to complete assignments through deadlines, but here we are. 

• Students may not complete LATE Discussion Forums, given that the learning activity is meant to be completed in collaboration with other students with their current level of understanding. Any submission after the due date will be marked zero (0).

Because discussion forums are asynchronous with a day limit, I feel confident in setting this deadline. The purpose isn't the post, it is the conversation with colleagues, the sorting out of ideas by discussing them is the goal. 

• Students may not complete LATE Quizzes, given that they will have a week to complete it and will have two attempts. Any submission after the due date will be marked zero (0).

We'll see how this goes.  

• Students may have an additional two (2) days (as in 48 hours) for LATE Excel Skills and Application assignments. Any submission after this date will be marked zero (0).
• Students may have an additional two (2) days (as in 48 hours) for LATE Course Projects. Any submission after this date will be marked zero (0).

I've built this into my grading so I don't mind if students are a day or two late.  

• All submissions must be complete by Wednesday, December 10th at 10:00 PM.

All prior due dates will be by Monday, December 8th at 10:00 PM, so students can have a the extra two days for the project and homework.  

AI Policy

None of this is revolutionary, and no, I don't want or need students to use AI in our course. I will be giving some ideas of what they could use AI for (writing practice questions, taking apart learning objectives, etc.) to provide some level of guidance. 

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen A.I.) Policy

I expect that all work students submit for this course will be their own. The use of ChatGPT, Google Bard, or any other generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools at all stages of the work process, including preliminary ones such as creating drafts, generating ideas, etc., are not allowed. Violations of this policy will be considered academic dishonesty. Note that different classes at Clark could implement different AI policies, and it is your responsibility to understand the expectations for each course. 

To be clear this means using generative A.I. for assignments is not allowed, and there are other aspects of learning and studying a student could use these tools for. To help guide students towards useful and acceptable uses of this technology, each Weekly Overview will contain a recommended activity students could use this technology for, in addition to other information.  

Writing a syllabus feels like writing a check that you need to cash by following through and making all of these assignments, rubrics, assessments, and then grading them all. I will try to reflect on these policies in December, after the term ends, as I am trimming the Christmas tree. 

Pre-Fall Term Psychic Exorcism: Statistics class ideas on a page

Past two weeks between summer term and the faculty work week has been spent packing (we bought a house!), cooking a lot of good food, watching Star Trek: TNG, and reading a variety of books and articles meant to 'help' my teaching. Not sure if they are helping right now, I just have a lot of ideas floating around in my head that I need to put somewhere, namely here.

• I've been browsing Technology-Supported Mathematics Learning Environments 67th Yearbook (2005) and while focused on a K-12 audience, I have taken up a few ideas from it:
• Teaching Strategies for Developing Judicious Technology Use by Ball and Stacey helped address my concerns of letting students run amok with calculators (mathematical totems I call them in class). They suggest, as is a common theme with many education best practices, that we have to model how to use technology tools. And not just their actual use, but whether to use them or not. I am hoping to incorporate some of the strategies below into my in-class activities, through question prompts, discussions, or demonstrations.
  
  
  
• Comparing Distributions and Growing Samples by Hand and with a Computer Tool by Bakker and Frederickson focused on middle school students and their conceptual development of data, samples, population, and measures of center. This passage in particular struck me:

• We can compare this situation (focus on calculation of measures of center) to the proverbial tip of the iceberg. It is the substance beneath the surface that makes the iceberg float. In this metaphor, mean, median, and mode are the visible tip of the iceberg. What is beneath the visible surface is the knowledge and skills that students really need to understand and sensibly use these measures of center. 

While it is necessary to be able to do the computations, it is much more critical for students to develop an understanding of when these measures are appropriate, and then apply and use these numbers in context. This reinforces the need for students to write these numbers in context, and base decisions on them. My in-class activities should always contain summary questions that ask students to write in words what their calculations are, and what they mean.


• Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty by Barkley offers a wide variety of ways to get students engaged with course material. One I found especially useful was the two-page section on "Try to rebuild the confidence of discouraged and disengaged students." Teaching statistics usually means teaching a student population that has some mathematical knowledge, but are not confident with that knowledge. Below is a list of strategies based on Motivating students to learn by Brophy (2004).
  
  
  
  
  
  I tried having students set goals in my summer Calculus course, asking them to describe what their study plan was for the weekend. I think this helped with planning, understanding consequences, and overall helped students understand responsibility. I will definitely incorporate these questions into post-quizzes for my statistics course.
  
  The entirety of Chapter 8: Tips and Strategies for Promoting Active Learning should be tattooed on my body somewhere. I know and apply a number of the strategies (Activate prior learning, clarify your role, limit and chunk information, etc.) but found the section on "Teach in ways that promote effective transfer." useful. I regularly refer to Bloom's Taxonomy in my classes, but the below table really hit home that your strategies and methods for developing those cognitive tasks should be different for each level of understanding.
  
  

So in summary, for my Fall Statistics course I will:

• Include judicious technology use questions throughout in-class activities. 
• Have questions that ask students to interpret their calculations, and make decisions based on them. 
• In announcements and post-quizzes write comments or questions that have students think about what they have accomplished, set realistic goals, go to different support services, and to reflect on their own cognitive processes. 
• During the start of the course, and during exam review sessions, share the Learning Strategies table and have students determine what a question is asking, at what level, and possibly how they should study for such a question. 

Glad I got those ideas out, and can now refer back to them after the term to keep me accountable. What ideas are floating around in your head for the upcoming term? Any exciting projects, new ways of doing things, assignments, assessments? Feel free to share below. 

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.

Creating an activity about Bayes' Theorem from a blog post

When I teach a topic I haven't taught for a while, I usually refer to some old texts, my course notes, and the internet for new ways of presenting the topic. In my statistics class we were to cover Bayes' Theorem, a topic I have always enjoyed presenting, but never felt that I got quite 'right'. Students seemed disconnected from the idea, and weren't able to answer basic questions about the idea during the first lecture.

To address this I wanted to create an activity where students were to apply Bayes' Theorem in a relatively simple way. Searching the internet I found the article (an essay really) An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, and thought it did a good job explaining the basic idea, and even includes different presentations of the same example. These different presentations are used to discuss innumeracy in health professionals, but provided me a variety of ways of presenting this example.

After some self-editing and debate, I settled on using the simplest presentation of this example; Statistics I Activity - Bayes' Theorem. While the questions aren't directly about Bayes' Theorem, it gets students more familiar with conditional probabilities and how to compute them.

Creating an activity from a blog post or article has some advantages I didn't realize until I presented the activity to students:

• Students are able to confirm their answers by reading the article, a noble goal by itself. 
• I don't mention where I pulled the example from, so they have to search through the article to find the 'answers'. If they read through parts of the article by accident, even better.
• The content becomes richer by pulling from outside resources. I dislike the idea that a course is just about what I, as the instructor, want from students. The ideas and concepts we are talking about are greater than just me, the textbook, and the student. Using someone else's perspective on the topic makes the course 'bigger'.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to share them below.

Part III - Forming an interesting in-class Statistics activity

I've discussed what I wanted for this experiment activity, what my plan was, and now I'll talk about how it went and what to change in future activities. Overall I thought it went pretty well, but there were a few major changes that had to be made on the fly. The biggest one being the math tests themselves; I completely underestimated my student's basic math ability and we came up with useless data. Someone mentioned that they thought it was part of the activity, and was a great way to show how 'messy' statistics really is. I'm glad they thought that, because I really didn't anticipate it.

The initial discussion of how to construct this experiment was useful and demonstrated a number of ideas we discussed in class. Controlling for certain variables turned into a big part of the discussion, namely how to control for people with natural math ability. We decided to do a paired sample, pairing those people of the same math ability by their score on the first test. I asked if this was really the best measure, and we had a good conversation of how to measure someone's math ability, and how for some people, that's their job.

To control for some of these variables, and to construct a basic demographic survey, I had students develop a few survey questions that may help explain some variation in math ability. This discussion included what to ask, how to ask it, and what kinds of variables (categorical, numerical, etc.) we were measuring. I suggested a question about how long it has been since you took a math class, and some students wanted to do a categorical variable of 0-6 months, 7-12 months, etc. I responded with the question "Is it easier to turn numerical data into categorical data or categorical data into numerical data?" and we talked about converting from one data type to another, and how we were going to use the data.

We also talked about what would happen if a person took two similar math tests back to back. One student mentioned that people would become fatigued,  and rightly so. To limit this I asked what we could do to limit the fatigue, and we discussed the pros and cons of long and short tests. I also mentioned the idea of activating previous knowledge and that after seeing the first test, students would remember how to complete the questions for the second test. We 'settled' on giving both tests to both control and experimental group, and 18 basic math questions... since thats what was in the packet. I know this isn't in the true spirit of exploratory activities, and some people might deride me for exerting this amount of control over the process. I want students to explore this material and engage with it, but doing everything on the fly doesn't seem conductive to these aims. Without some kind of structure students get bored, annoyed, disengaged with the learning process. I can deal with the first two things (barely) but the third I can't.

Students then took the survey we constructed together (number of months since last math class, sex, age, handedness, work status) and the first test. I took them all, handed them back out randomly, and we graded them. I then had students come up to the computer to enter in the information in Excel. This was a good step since it showed that data entry is an important step, one people take for granted. It is time consuming work, and must be done accurately. This was at the 1-hour mark and once they entered the data we had a 5-minute break.

Once the data was entered there were some survey responses that didn't make sense. Instead of age, one person put 'old'. For the number of months since last math class, someone put the categorical variable response 0-6 months even though we settled on a numeric one. I then discussed data cleansing and that our simple decisions on how to handle these discrepancies has real impact on our data. For the 0-6 month responses, we inputted 3 and included an asterix. For the 'old' response we took the oldest age in the data set (26) and replaced 'old' with that number, including an asterix.

After grading and inputting the data, all but two people received perfect scores on the first test. We discussed how we couldn't use this data since we are looking for improvement in math ability after attempting this puzzle, and we can't show improvement if everyone scored perfectly the first time. I quickly made another test that was more difficult (basic algebra, roots, percentages), had students complete it, graded it, and the scores were much more varied.

This turned out great, even though my veins went to ice when I looked at the initial scores. Students saw that our question couldn't be answered with the data set we so carefully constructed and we had to start again. This demonstrates the 'messiness' of statistics I try to get across to them and how you really have to rely on sound statistical principles, and your understanding of the context to get good data.

Creating the sample was now fairly simple, we paired people based on their initial scores and randomly assigned one to the control group and one to the experimental group. In the pairing we noticed that we had an odd number of people. I asked if there was an observational unit (person) that their initial test and survey information seemed to be outside everyone else's. We decided to remove the 'old' entry from above, since it did not seem comparable with the others. Once we did that we created each of the groups.

The experimental group then had 10 minutes to work on the puzzle. I did not say they had to complete it, just that they had to attempt it. The control group worked on the part of the activity that was to be turned in, descriptive statistics and a box-and-whisker plot of the four data sets (pre-test/post-test, control/experiment). Once the time was up I made another quick test, administered it, we graded it, and I collected the scores.

Getting all the data together there was a distinct difference in the control and experimental group. Averaging the before and after puzzle scores for both groups, it was clear that the experimental group's averages were about ten percent higher than the control group's. I then found the differences in scores, averaged those, and found the percent increase to be about six percent. These two averages came out to two different numbers, but I asked which one would I pick to use to sell my puzzle? We then had a conversation about these sorts of averages, how to compute other similar numbers, and how marketers do similar things in their promotional materials.

Overall I thought it was great, and would probably keep most of it, including the too-easy of tests. I would be a little more prepared and have some back-up tests to use, but it really demonstrated that your initial plan sometimes doesn't work. I would like to include scatterplots and linear regression models next time, but it is not included in our Statistics I course.

I could have done a better job of demonstrating how to control for a variable, and used some basic descriptive techniques to do so. For example, breaking the control and experimental groups into sex, handedness, or work status could show if there were any significant differences in these groups.

Thank you for reading these posts about me struggling through the planning, development, and execution of this activity. If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to post them below.

Forming an interesting in-class Statistics activity - Part II

After the last post I spent some time thinking about my options for an experiment to do in-class that fulfilled all of my requirements. After some thought I decided on the following plan.

• Claim to the class that I have a logic puzzle that I believe will help people with their math skills. I want to be able to put something on my website saying that this puzzle helped people with their math by some incredible percentage.
• Walk students through how I was to do this, including samples, factors to control for, and how to create the tests. I guided the conversation so that we would also collect information on how long ago they took their previous math class, to ensure that the control and experimental groups had a variety of math ability levels (measured by an initial test), to anonymize the results, and discuss how we would use the class setting in the most appropriate manner.
• I created a packet with all the necessary tests, the puzzle, and data recording forms. When printed I assigned random numbers to each packet. I would hand out these packets at this time, asking students to remember their number.
• Students took the first test, I collect it, hand it back out randomly, and we graded the results.
• Collecting the data in Excel on the projector, we would then make our sample based on the survey questions we agreed on and the scores. At this time we would compare different sampling methods and how to make them work.
• Have the students in the experimental group work the logic puzzle, and the control group start on computing descriptive statistics of the pre-puzzle scores. I would later ask all students to compute descriptive statistics for both tests, both samples, as what they were to turn in.
• After 10 minutes, have all students take a similar test, collect them, hand them back out randomly, grade them, and collect their scores.
• Having collected this information we would then do some basic statistical analysis on each group, comparing means, medians, standard deviations, and possibly five-number summaries. Comparing the means and medians of each group, and comparing the difference in the two scores and then their means, I would create two different reasonable measures for what I could include on my website. I would like to do some linear regressions, but that material isn't covered in this class but in Statistics II. 
• Wrap-up with a discussion on how to make this experiment better. Guide the conversation to the placebo effect (I did mention to everyone that I thought these puzzles would help.), blinding, sources of bias, and anything else students mentioned. 

Here is the packet I put together, Statistics I In-Class Activity: Experiment. Tomorrow's post will be about how the activity worked, what didn't, and how I'd like to change it in the future.

If you have any suggestions, or you use this or a similar activity in your Statistics class, feel free to share by commenting below. Thanks!

Forming an interesting in-class Statistics activity.

This Wednesday I've scheduled an in-class activity that relates some of the ideas we've discussed in my Statistics I class. So far they include surveys, descriptive statistics (mean, median, quartiles, and standard deviation), sampling, experiment design, and observational studies. Writing this on Tuesday morning, I have nothing written down but I have a couple ideas of what I want this activity to include:

• Perform an experiment and/or an observational study. I covered what these are in a lecture, but I really want them to attempt one (or both) on their own so they get a concrete idea of what they are. Doing both would be best since they would then be able to compare the methods of both.
• Take appropriate samples based on the research question. Ideally this would be done with students in the class so they can see how to take appropriate samples.
• Compute and use descriptive statistics to compare and contrast different samples. Quantitative reasoning and analysis are a core focus in statistics. 
• Talk about statistics. Whether it be in groups or in a presentation, forming ideas and communicating them to others is another core skill in statistics.

I also know what I don't want:

• A rote activity that requires no input from students. I want them to struggle with questions about sampling, which statistic to compute, what to do next. Through this struggle I want them to appreciate principles like variability, controlling for certain variables, and how to construct arguments for one action or another.

For an experiment I have a few ideas:

• Performing an intervention dealing with basic math skills. The idea would be to assess if a certain intervention (a logic puzzle, or a game) has any effect on student performance of a basic math test. We would discuss how to create a control, how to create the samples, how to administer the tests, etc. While the direct applicability of this example may be a stretch, it would be a constructed activity that students could perform.
• Have the students develop their own question and proceed from there. This has some issues, primarily because of the unending and uncertain nature of such a question. Without some guidance the possibilities are a bit too large, which generally leaves students not choosing anything at all.
• Provide a context (marketing manager, nurse's aide, etc.), and have students develop an interesting question that can be answered in-class. While being more specific we may not be able to answer such questions in-class. For example, if we wanted to do A/B testing of a website, we would have to construct this example fairly quickly, and perform the experiment on people who weren't part of the development of the website.

For an observational study:

• Given a data set have students develop an appropriate research question, and try to answer it using the data. This could be generalized further by having multiple data sets and have students pick one, or assign different groups different data sets.
• Taking the survey data collected at the beginning of the course, ask an appropriate research question that can be answered either by the previously collected data, or by another survey in class. The survey data is anonymous so it would be difficult to answer some questions.

You can probably guess which way I'm leaning, but I'll post the completed activities tomorrow. Feel free to post in the comments if you have any ideas or suggestions.