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Tip #1
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Tip #2
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Learn about pedagogy and use it to its advantage
Tip #4
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Meet students where they are, not where you wish they were
Tip #3
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Professors’ behavior can maximize students’ achievement
Don’t assume students know how to study
Tip #5
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Don’t reinvent the wheel
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Be a role model
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Demonstrate behaviors you wish to see in students
 Watch general tenor of class
 Don’t be a rude, arrogant, condescending jerk
 Do be yourself (at least the nice version of yourself)
 http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/want-toengage-students-dont-be-an-idiot/
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Be prepared for class each day
 Practice calculations before coming to class
 If you say you are going to do something … do it
 Grade papers and return them promptly
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Formulate an explicit syllabus
Assignments and requirements for each class
 How grades will be determined
 A bit about your expectations
 http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/7
5/
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Structure syllabus to assure appropriate pacing
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Plan on spending more time on critical information
 Build a foundation at the beginning of the semester
 Statistics in the context of research
 Variability, chance difference, uses of statistics
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Calculating the Sum of Squares
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1 day conceptually
1 day calculations
 Assignments and Exercises for Students 4.4
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Extra few days of homework
 Assignments and Exercises for Students 5.2
 http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/eng
aging-learners-by-focusing-on-three-learning-styles/
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Sampling Distribution of the Mean
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1 day M&M activity
1 day conceptually
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Standard Error
 Foreshadow this concept by talking about individual
differences in every class
 Every time you introduce a new research topic, have
students identify potential individual differences that
can lead to sampling error
 Tie in with sampling distribution of the mean
activities/ discussion
 Point out where the standard error is being calculated
in various statistics
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Discuss beliefs about attitudes and their
relation to academic success
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Encourage students to adopt a growth mindset
Have students complete Exercises 1.1 to 1.4 of
Assignments and Exercises for Students.
Discuss their responses in class or on a discussion
board
Have students complete a mindset survey
http://mindsetonline.com/testyourmindset/step1.php
http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/index.html
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Engage students from the first day
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You are the best tool you have
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/How-to-Avoid-Being-a-Jerk-in/26427/
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Engage the various modalities, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic
http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/engaging-learners-by-focusing-on-three-learning-styles/
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Get students interacting and talking
 On the first day
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Be three standard deviations from the mean with a discussion on
variability
http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/first-day-of-class-starting-off-right/
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Every day
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Pedagogical practice (discussed later)
 Anticipatory Set (opening activities)
 Every Pupil Response
 Modeling of calculations
 Using data gathered from students
http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/getting-them-to-talk/
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There are additional examples throughout this presentation
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They would rather be in almost any other
course
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Engage students from the first day
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It is likely they have no idea of why this course
should be relevant to their plans
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Ask students to generate questions they would like
to answer
Point out that statistics can be the tool to help answer
these questions
Use their questions as examples while defining those
first few terms variability, statistics, variable, and
data
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Many students come to college woefully illprepared in mathematics
Order of operation for calculations
 The difference between squaring a number and
finding the square root
 How to use the calculator for finding a square root or
to square a value
 Lining up the decimals before adding subtracting
 How to convert a fraction into a decimal
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Learn how to control your “You have got to be
kidding me” micro (macro)-expressions on
your face
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Assign daily homework that meets the needs of
your students (discussed later)
Use modeling to your advantage
During steps of the calculation, include reminders of
elementary math
You can have fun with it by acting like you are
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“Calling a Game”
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“Describing a Fashion Show”
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“OK, so here we have two negative numbers that we
need to multiply. A negative times a negative is a
positive … ”
“Now it’s time to square three, so that’s three times
three, and we end with nine”
“What order should I calculate this in … oh, yes,
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. We start with
‘please’ the P in ‘please’ stands for calculating what
is in the parentheses first”
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It is not uncommon for more than ½ of a class
to report high levels of math anxiety
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As discussed earlier, having students adopt the
optimal mindset will
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Decrease their anxiety
Increase behavior associated with success
Due to a lack of prior academic success,
particularly in math, students often have low
self-efficacy beliefs
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Students’ with low self efficacy and/or entity
mindset have behaviors that
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Keep them from being successful
Can be interpreted that they don’t care
Solution
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Structure the class, homework, and non-graded
quizzes so students can experience success
Quickly identify any potential areas of weakness
Help students adopt a growth mindset
Use other techniques discussed (e.g., Every
Pupil Response or “Calling the Game”)
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English may be a second language for some
students
Students may have weak reading skills
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Solution
 Provide students with outlines of the reading
material
 Provide students with a list of vocabulary and
symbols
 All of the above recommendations, especially
providing relevant, real life examples and having
students generate ideas themselves
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Concrete/real life/ relevant examples
Teaching statistics as theory can be too abstract
 Much of statistics developed in an applied context
 Fisher developed many statistical techniques in his
studies of the effect of soil fertility on plant growth
 Students enjoy hearing about research being
conducted by people you know
 Collect data from students
 Students enjoy “current” topics

Your source for the latest
psychological research.
Research found that in just and fair organizations, local employees were more likely to offer aid to their foreign
coworkers
Being treated differently because you’re a foreigner doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Research published in Psychological
Science found that in just and fair organizations, local employees were more likely to offer aid to their foreign coworkers.
Psychological scientists Geoffrey Leonardelli and Soo Min Toh, Univeristy of Toronto conducted two field studies on various
local employees who have worked with an immigrant from another country. Locals were more likely to aid their foreign
coworkers by sharing information and knowledge about the local area when there was clear categorization of local or
foreigner and when they felt the organization was fair and bias-free.
“Group-based differences often create an ‘us versus them’ mentality,” says Toh. “However, we found that when employees
felt that they were treated fairly by their employers, group-based differences were more likely to manifest as an ‘us and
them’ mentality.” Toh and Leonardelli’s findings suggest that immigrants may benefit more from openly sharing their foreign
origin with coworkers rather than trying to blend in as a local.
Leonardelli GJ, & Toh SM (2011). Perceiving expatriate coworkers as foreigners encourages aid: social categorization and
procedural justice together improve intergroup cooperation and dual identity. Psychological science, 22 (1), 110-7
PMID: 21148458
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Don't be afraid to introduce some basic principles
of research
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Understanding statistics in the context of research
 Increases understanding
 Increases sense of relevancy
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Much of applied statistical thinking has been
driven by attempting to improve decision making
from data
Business decisions
 Games of chance. Where would casinos be without a
grasp of probability?
 Predicting behavior like suicide or marital happiness
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Building upon research by cognitive
developmental psychologists, this pedagogical
practice encourages the instructor to
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Recognize when students are in the Zone of Proximal
Development
 Students cannot complete a task on their own, but can
with assistance
 Constrain the complexity of the situation so students can
master the task
 After mastery, the constraint is removed, yet the
student is still successful at the task
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This approach results in a much greater speed of
learning
Kiess and Green (2010) applies this technique
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Before having students find the variance, have them
practice finding the sum of squares (e.g., Assignment
and Exercise 4.4 and 5.2)
Set A
X
22
23
25
24
21
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(X – M)
(X – M)2
Once they master finding the SS, finding the variance
(sd, z-test, t-test, or r ) becomes much easier
Sometimes it may seem like students should be
able to put multiple steps together
 Adding that last step can be the straw that
breaks the poor camel
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By having students master the component
pieces before putting them together, greater
and faster success will be realized
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Modeling
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Discussed Previously
Showing students how to complete a problem is not
as helpful as truly modeling it for them, like “Calling
a Game” or “Describing a Fashion Show”
Have students work along with you, completing the
parts they already know how to do
 Every Pupil Response
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Every Pupil Response
Every Pupil Response is a pedagogical technique
that expects all students in the class to
simultaneously respond
 Getting students talking or engaging increases their
intellectual engagement
 There are different ways of getting all students to
respond
 This link has a list of activities for K – 6 students, but
many of them will work for college students.
 http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/file/view
/Pre-assessment+Techniques+Chart.pdf
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Have everyone respond in unison
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What is this symbol? “little sigma”
What does it represent? “population standard
deviation”
Other examples:
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Thumbs up, thumbs down for true and false questions
Students can shade in area in a normal distribution
Using your hand to demonstrate the answer (Likert Scale)
Using your hand, show me what the sum of the
deviations should be? “fist” or “O.K.” sign is shown
to illustrate zero
 With a thumbs up or down, who found the answer?
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
http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2010/09/
12/getting-them-to-talk/
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Visual, Tactile, & Kinesthetic Activities
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For decades, K-12 educators have been telling
children they are either auditory, visual, tactile, or
kinesthetic learners
The research is questionable regarding students
being better suited for one style of learning over
another
http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-TeachingStyle-to/49497/
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All people benefit from visual illustrations or
hand-movements from the professor
 Illustrations on the chalk board
 Using sign language with initial letters (works well
with EPR)
 Mathematica
http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/bef
ore-the-semester-starts-im-playing-with-pictures/
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Hands-on activities (e.g., poker chips)
You will keep students attention if they have to
move
Have students draw concepts
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Identifying and shading in regions associated with zscore and the normal distribution
The location of a t-test or F-test on the appropriate
distribution
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An opening class exercise presented to
students prior to the start of direct instruction
Enables students to anticipate what will be covered
during class
 Increases effective encoding of newly taught
information
 Increases integration of new material with
previously learned material
 Can make use of the benefits of self testing
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Used to
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Motivate students
Help students get mentally prepared to learn material
Provides the context for the lesson
Examples of Anticipatory Set
Non-graded quizzes
Asking students to discuss a topic
Provide students with a question at the end of the prior
class, and begin by discussing their answers at the start of
class
 Minute Papers
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 Give students a minute to write what they learned from the
prior reading material, homework, or class
 Encourage
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students to make use of:
Flash cards for terms and symbols
Assignments and Exercises for Students
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/produ
ct/Statistical-Concepts-for-the-BehavioralSciences/9780205626243.page
Assignments in the textbook
Provide students with answers
Entire problem
 Intermediate steps
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Assign homework so students will be most likely
to experience success
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Space studying
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6 days a week, with 1 day off
1 hour per day
Make assignments specific
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Problem numbers
Terms
Symbols
Pages to read in the book
Self testing
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Encourage students to treat homework like it’s an
exam … closed note, closed book (though they
should have the statistical formula in front of them)
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Early in the semester, use research on study skills as
examples for the concepts you are teaching
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Cassaday, H. J., Bloomfield, R. E., & Hayward, N. (2002).
Relaxed conditions can provide memory cues in both
undergraduate and primary school children. British Journal of
Educational Psychology, 72, 531-547.
Gurung, G. A. R. (2005). How do students really study (and
does it matter)? Teaching of Psychology, 32, 239-241.
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of self
testing memory: Basic research and implication for educational
practices. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 1, 181-210.
It may be worth it to spend 20 minutes talking about
optimized study skills to your students
http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/hel
ping-students-with-study-skills/
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There plenty of available resources
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Journal of Statistics Education, an ASA journal
Teaching of Psychology Journal
Textbook supplements
Books geared toward teaching statistics
 Ware, M. E., & Brewer, C. L. (Eds.). (1999).
Handbook for teaching statistics and research methods
(2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
 Dunn, D. S., Smith, R. A., & Beins, B. C. (2007). Best
practices in teaching statistics and research methods in
the behavioral sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Supplemental Materials for Kiess and Green (2010)
 Extensive instructors’ manual
 PowerPoint presentations
 Assignments and Exercises for Students
 Test Bank
 http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Statisti
cal-Concepts-for-the-Behavioral-Sciences/9780205626243.page
Statistical Sage Blog
 We review, synthesize, and summarize what we and others are
doing and saying about the teaching of statistics
 http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/
Don’t forget to tell us what is working for you and what isn’t!
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Thank you!
Questions?
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bgreen@po-box.esu.edu or hkiess@verizon.net
statisticalsage/wordpress.com