Dr. Marson,
One of the things I found useful to do, when teaching either biostatistics
or environmental modelling, was to have students develop programs to do the
analysis they were studying. Dealing with biology students, they were often
intimidated by both math and computers, yet this worked well.
There ae a number of benefits. First, they see what a computer program may
be doing to their data. Second, if they have problems, and they often do,
seeing the code they wrote gives very useful information about what they may
have misunderstood, even though they will encounter as many problems
associated with the use of a language like BAISC or Pascal or FORTRAN or
C++. Third, they are less likely to treat stats, and stats software, as
black boxes that they put some garbage into and get something indescribable
in return. Also, since they can not do environmental modelling without
solid math, including but not limited to statistics, and computer
programming, they build on skills they will need anyway.
Only toward the end of a module, AFTER they have successfully developed
their own program to do an analysis, would I require them to use several of
the available stats packages available on campus. I figure that the
university probably has licenses for SAS, SPSS, S-Plus, &c., and so they
ought to try them all on each of they datasets to which they have access, so
they a) can use whatever product their future employer may have, and b) make
choices about such software informed by hands on use.
The educational objectivess I had were defined by what I believed my
students ought to be able to do when the course is finished. I would not
care about attendance, and I'd require them to take exams (if I give them -
I prefer to rely on lab work) at the set time, subject to the university's
administrations rules regarding makeup exams (and I'd have a similar
attitude toward assignments - they get turned in on time, period, unless the
university has rules governing submission of assignments late). You see,
What matters is that the students can do what I require them to be able to
do. I don't care when they do it as long as they can demonstrate that they
can do it. We are not dealing with childen, afer all.
What I would recommend that you do is consider what your students ought ot
be able to do, and let that guide you. As for specific content, what I
would be recommending would likely be different from what would be
appropriate for a specialist in theoretical stats which would be different
from what would be appropriate for you (hence my reluctance to comment
specifically on the details of your syllabus). You know what you and your
colleagues have to do. Use that to decide what ought to be taught.
I hope you find this useful.
Cheers,
Ted
R.E. Byers, Ph.D., Ed.D.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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