1. A STATISTICS COURSE WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON WRITING Prabha Betne LaGuardia Community College Mathematics Department April 8, 2006

2. Writing in Math 1.Would you use writing in your math courses?

3. Writing in Math 2.If you used writing in your math class, how many students do you think will say that it helped them learn the subject?

4. Writing in Math 3.How many students do you think would recommend such a math course that involves significant amount of writing, to future students?

5. What did the students say? 10 out of 13 (77%) - helpful in learning the subject better 11 out of 13 (85%) - helped better prepare for the exam 9 out of 13 (69%) - recommend such course for future students 2 out of 13 (15%) - not sure and, 2 out of 13 (15%) - not recommend.

6. Math – A Language Translate the following in words

7. About Writing "If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well." Albert Einstein

8. Why Write in Math? Write to learn Improve communication skills Develop analytical reading ability

9. Writing Exercises Low stake writing assignments High stake writing assignments Peer reading and responding Minute papers Recapitulation

10. Low-Stake Assignments (total 10% of the final grade)

11. Low-Stake Assignments (1) Write a letter to a classmate explaining the logic of a Statistical Hypothesis Testing procedure. Describe the role of the Central Limit Theorem and give your friend reasons why test statistics are used in Hypothesis Testing.

12. Low-Stake Assignments (2) Discuss the similarities and differences between the concepts of finding confidence interval and hypothesis testing. Explain how one can use a confidence interval to conduct a hypothesis test.

13. Low-Stake Assignments (3) Give examples of two situations in which making an inference about a population standard deviation would be important.

14. Low-Stake Assignments (4) Explain the use of Chi-square distribution in an independence test a goodness-of-fit test.

15. High-Stake Assignment (15% of the final grade)

16. High-Stake Assignment A staged assignment based on the ideas previously developed in the low stake assignments. Imitated a job situation which required data analysis and making recommendations.

17. High-Stake Assignment The stages were: Write an analysis plan. Conduct the planned analysis. Write a report (a sample report was given to follow the format). The report contained summary of the analysis and, the recommendations.

18. Outcomes Better understanding of the concepts Improved writing Increased teacher-student interaction Increased student-student interaction Reduced fear of writing Recapitulation Peer response

19. Questions ? Workload? Time? Class size? Other?

20. Thank you