In this paper, the dice game "Unders and Overs" is described and presented as an active learning exercise to introduce basic probability concepts. The implementation of the exercise is outlined and the resulting presentation of various probability concepts are described.

This article describes a bivariate data set that is interesting to students. Indeed, this particular data set, which involves twins and IQ, has sparked more student interest than any other set that I have presented. Specific uses of the data set are presented.

Statistical tasks that can be solved in a variety of ways provide rich sites for classroom discourse. Orchestrating such discourse requires careful planning and execution. Five specific practices can help teachers do so. The five practices can be used to structure conversations so that coherent classroom narratives about solutions to tasks may be…

Statistical inference relies heavily on the concept of sampling distributions. However, sampling distributions are difficult to teach. We present a series of short animations that are story-based, with associated assessments. We hope that our contribution can be useful as a tool to teach sampling distributions in the introductory statistics…

Regression analysis is an important aspect of most introductory statistics courses in sociology but is often presented in contexts divorced from the central concerns that bring students into the discipline. Consequently, we present five lesson ideas that emerge from a regression analysis of income inequality and mortality in the USA and Canada.

The article asks about the minimal number of persons required for achieving a probability 1/2 that (a.) At least two share a birthday, (b.) At least one shares the reader's birthday. A basic question about the necessary number of checks underlies both problems.

The article presents an attempt to analyse Monty's dilemma by means of conversational formula-free dialogues and to simulate the problem by composing isomorphic stories. The crucial roles of specifying the underlying scenarios and explicating epistemic and probabilistic assumptions are highlighted.

Students often are confused about the differences between bar graphs and histograms. The authors discuss some reasons behind this confusion and offer suggestions that help clarify thinking.

The Tukey mean-difference plot, also called the Bland-Altman plot, is a recognized graphical tool in the exploration of biometrical data. We show that this technique deserves a place on an introductory statistics course by encouraging students to think about the kind of graph they wish to create, rather than just creating the default graph for the…

The standard deviation is related to the mean by virtue of the coefficient of variation. Teachers of statistics courses can make use of that fact to make the standard deviation more comprehensible for statistics students.

The aprioristic (classical, naïve and symmetric) and frequentist interpretations of probability are commonly known. Bayesian or subjective interpretation of probability is receiving increasing attention. This paper describes an activity to help students differentiate between the three types of probability interpretations.

Students have intuitive notions of the meaning of variability; some may see variability as how values in a set vary from each other. This article provides a measure of variability that is based on that conception. We introduce this new measure and a method for calculating it. Finally, we prove that this measure is equivalent to the population…

The number of increases a particular stock makes over a fixed period follows a Poisson distribution. This article discusses using this easily-found data as an opportunity to let students become involved in the data collection and analysis process.

Real-world phenomena simulation models, which can be used to engage middle-school students with probability, are described. Links to R instructional material and easy-to-use code are provided to facilitate implementation in the classroom.

Chocolate chip cookies are used to illustrate the importance and effectiveness of control charts in Statistical Process Control. By counting the number of chocolate chips, creating the spreadsheet, calculating the control limits and graphing the control charts, the student becomes actively engaged in the learning process. In addition, examining…