Does Use of the Discussion Board

Does Use of the

Discussion Board

Enhance Learning in Elementary Statistics?

Project for the 2004-2005

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

May, 2005

Loretta Thielman

Math, Stat. & Comp. Sci.

UW-Stout

Part I, Reflection

To encourage deeper learning in my students I asked them to do several ≥writing to learn≤ assignments. The student responses were posted on a discussion board at a Learn@UW-Stout class site so that they could see each others submissions and respond to them directly. The discussion topics involved either of two types. The first was describing a scenario from their major field which was appropriate for using particular statistical methods. This was intended to enhance their sense of the relevance of the statistical tools in their present and future studies. The second was reflection on the most helpful activities in understanding some of the more challenging concepts. This was intended to help the student recognize what helped them most individually and to help me to know which activities the students felt were most helpful to them so that I could plan for future classes.

A teaching question has its focus on the teacher conveying some piece of knowledge. ≥How can I best teach my students to use the table of normal probabilities?≤ A learning question has its focus on the student internalizing an idea and connecting it to what the student already understands. ≥In what ways is a hypothesis test similar to a court trial?≤ ≥Why do people in my major field need to understand statistics?≤

A student has learned deeply when she can put a statistical problem in the context of the big ideas of the course. How was the data collected and why? What does the data look like? How much variation is involved? Can the characteristics of the data be generalized to a broader setting? Is it appropriate to conclude there is a cause and effect relationship between the variables?

My plans include having more frequent discussion questions for the class. When I ask for the most helpful activities in learning a concept, I will prompt the students with a list and the option of adding ≥other≤ activities. I will specifically ask if responding to the discussion topics was helpful in reaching their level of understanding. In addition to expanding on the first try of my SOTL research question, I want to try using a variety of pictures to see what statistical applications they see being used or suggest could be used in the chosen setting.

Part 2, Final Report

Introduction

There are several concepts in the Elementary Statistics course which often tend to challenge students. I wanted to see if using an online discussion board to pose questions would help them to learn the concepts better. One type of question directed the students to relate statistical concepts to a scenario in their own major field which I hoped would help them recognize the utility of these methods. The responses would allow me to see how well they had internalized the topics. The second type of question asked the students to consider and report how quickly a difficult topic was understood and what activities helped the most in gaining their understanding.

Procedure

The section of Elementary Statistics had regular class sessions four days a week during third quarter (2005).

A course had a site under Learn@UW-Stout which was only used for the discussion topic entries. There were two topics of each type described above.

Results

Statistics in My Major

1. Give an example of a set of individuals, a variable and some plausible values in a scenario that might be encountered in your major field. Describe how you would graph the data and what summary statistics you would compute. Tell why studying this variable would be of interest to people in your major field.

Sample Responses

a) I would graph how many students have

taken the Intro. to Business class so far at

UW-Stout. The set of individuals would be the students with the business major. The variables would be the different grade levels

the students are. The values could be 45, 50, 60 and 65. A bar graph could be used.

(below expectations)

b) i would like to see how long it takes

each student in the service management

program for them each to graduate.

Individuals: each student in the service

management program

Variable: how long it took each student to

Graduate

Pausible values: 4 years, 4 ½ years, 5 years

I would graph it in a simple bar graph. this

would interest me to check to see if i am on

track to graduate in a acceptable time period

(better but not by much)

c) My set of individuals would be guests

at a hotel. The variable would be the level of

customer satisfaction. This could be

measured on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the

best. Customers would be asked to fill out a

survey prior to checking out of the hotel.

Customer responses would be recorded. I

would graph the data using a histogram. I

would calculate the mean and median of the

responses. This variable is of interest to

hotel owners and managers because if

customers are not satisfied, the business will

not be successful in the long run.

(very good response)

2. Give an example of a scenario where you could use statistical inference to answer a research question [in your major area]. What methods would be used? Explain why this research question would be of interest to people in your major field.

Sample Responses

a) for my engineering major, I could take the

average salary of graduates who live in both

large and small urban areas, and use that to

decide which type of environment i want to

work in in the future

(below expectationsãno inference here)

b) When deciding where I want to work

After graduating from the Hotel and

Restaurant program here at Stout, I would be

interested in finding out the salaries of

various managerial positions at various

hotels across the country. I simple random

sample could be gathered and a histogram

could be made. I would calculate the mean and median from the data. I would use the information to determine what would be an appropriate amount of pay to seek and also to decide where I would like to work.

(better but the inference is not described)

c) In my major Human Development and

Family Studies I would propose that 15%

of Wisconsin children under the age of ten

are abused, I would collect data from government offices such as social services or other child care offices but there is a large lurking variable, instances of abuse that are not reported. This variable would hinder my research but I think that it would be beneficial for those people in my major, or line of work to know what they may be dealing with in the future. I could also graph the percentages of abuse over a period of a few years so we could possible predict a reasonable percentage of abused children reports that would be coming in.

Now that I read this I'm not sure it is a correct answer, but I would do it anyway.

(good response with several at least implied inferences)

Understanding Statistics

1. When did you understand normal density curves? What activities done in class or on your own helped the most?

Sample Results

When did you understand?	(Not all students responded)
Time	Number of Students
Within 2 days' discussion	4
3 to 4 days	11
5 to 6 days	1
7 to 10 days	1
11 or more days	1

What activities helped most?	(Not all students responded)
Activities	Number of students
In-class problem-solving/class discussion	14
In-class discussion/ teacher's examples	10
Textbook website applets	4
Doing assigned homework	3
Student's indiv. review of notes and text	3
Student's pre-test review	2
Having extra review day before the test	1
Asked the roomate	1

2. Describe the activities done in class or on your

own that helped most to understand the concepts and usage of confidence intervals, margin of error and computing of sample size.

Sample Results

What activities helped most?	(Not all students responded)
Activities	Number of students
In-class problem-solving with partners and class discussion	8
In class teacher's examples and discussion	6
Study textbook discussion and examples	3
Practice quiz	2
Student's individual review of notes	1
Asked his girl friend	1

Findings

The students' examples of applications of statistical concepts to their major field were mostly disappointing. The first question should have been easy and very straight-forward but the students mixed up many terms, had inappropriate plausible values and/or graphing plans. Perhaps the problem was that this was a very different type of assignment. Having 3 or 4 questions of this type would have been better.

The responses to the second type of question (best practices for learning difficult concepts) were more heartening although I wish all the students had participated fully in the discussions. One thing that was not so heartening was that no one said the discussion board questions were particularly helpful in learning these concepts. I believe that a revision of the discussion topics with more opportunities for the students to respond to the questions as well as each other would give greater benefit to the students as a learning tool.