Math W50
How Do They Know My Opinion?
Interim 2000

COURSE HOME PAGE

Course Description

• Procuding Good Data
  • Goal: To understand the basic methodologies of observational studies and randomized experiments.
• Describing and Analyzing Data
  • Goal: To understand several basic statistical summaries (numerical and graphical) and their use to summarize data sets.
• Drawing Trustworthy Conclusions from Data
  • Goal: To understand the basic principles that allow us to draw conclusions about a large population from information collected from a smaller sample.
  • Goal: To understand in detail the mathematics involved in inference for proportions (the mathematics used to gain information from public opion polls as well as in many other situations).
• Issues Concerning the Use/Misuse/Abuse of Data in Contemporary Society
  • Goal: To become an educated consumer of statistics as reported in the mass media and in technical reports.

Instructor

Randall Pruim
office: North Hall 284
phone: (616) 957-7113
E-mail: rpruim@calvin.edu

Problem Sessions

Monday - Friday, 11:00 - 11:50 pm, in North Hall ???

Each day, from 11:00 - 11:50 I will be available for help with homework problems and other questions. These sessions are optional, but I encourage you to make use of them. I recommmend doing the reading and as much of your homework as you can before that time, jotting down any questions you have and recording which items give you difficulty as you go along. Then you will know what to ask when you arrive. You can use the time from 12:00 until 2:00 to go back and finish any homework that you are better able to do after the problem session.

If no one arrives by 11:05, then the session will be canceled, so please come on time if you want some help with homework or with understanding topics from class.

Office hours

In addition to the problem sessions, individualized office hours can be scheduled by appointment if needed. I should usually be available immediately after class for a short time. We can set up a time for the next day if that would work better. Also feel free to contact me via email or to stop by my office if you have questions or want to set up an appointment.

Time & Location

Monday - Friday, 2:00 - 5:00 pm, in North Hall 295

Internet Resources

Email

I will maintain an email list of all students registered in this class and will occassionally use it to distribute information and reminders of various things pertaining to this course. If you do not know how to access your email, please talk to someone at the IT helpdesk. If you prefer to read your email from an account other than your calvin student account, send me email with the email address you prefer.

Since things move quickly in an interim setting, please check your email at least once each morning. That way, if I forget to tell you something in class, or a question comes up regarding an assignment, etc, you can get the information before class begins in the afternoon.

You can also send email to the class list or particular students in the class via BlackBoard

Web Pages

In addition to this home page, I will also maintain a list of web resources pertaining to this course. Items I have prepared and maintain online include

• a customizable calendar of daily readings, lecture topics, exams, homework etc. You are responsible for any information appearing on the course calendar. (Last modification: Thursday, 11-Jan-2001 16:02:15 EST.)
• a list of homework assignments. Due dates will be maintained on the calendar above. (I may also distribute these via email.)
• information about tests and exams.
• links to other sites with interesting information for this course.

BlackBoard CourseInfo

I am also making partial use of Calvin's BlackBoard CourseInfo intructional resources. You can go to BlackBoard to check your grades, send email to individuals or groups in the class, and to read all the other information (like this page) that I have on line. For more information on how to use CourseInfo, see the online tutorial.

Important Information

See me

If you are having difficulty with any portion of the course, do not hesitate to see me. Do this as soon as possible, certainly well in advance of any deadlines (like tests) so that we can work to fix the problem.

Required Textbook

Seeing Through Statistics,Second Edition by Jessica Utts.

Additional readings may also be assigned.

Grading

Because this course counts for core credit in Mathematics, you will receive a regular letter grade for this course.

Grading will be based on the following approximate weighting:

        10%    Attendence & Participation
        10%    Homework 
        20%    Quizzes (daily)
	25%    Test 1
        25%    Test 2
        10%    Project

Tests are scheduled for the following dates:

• Thursday, January 20;
• Wednesday, January 26;

Quizzes will be given daily and may cover any of the recent readings, videos, exercises or class activities.

Homework. You will not be able to master the material in this course without practice. I will make assignments every day. Some portions of these assignments will be collected and others will not. Please follow the guidelines below:

1. Problems to be handed in should be worked neatly, showing all of your work (when appropriate) and explaining your reasoning. The work should be organized in paragraph manner (work left to right and top to bottom; use English sentences to explain what you are doing, etc.).
2. Any work that is illegible or disorganized will not be graded.
3. Label each page with your name and the assignement. Each problem should be clearly labeled as well. Leave a little space between problems.
4. Each problem set should be on a separate sheet of paper. If you use more than one sheet of paper, these sheets must be stapled in the upper left corner. If you use spiral bound paper, please remove the fringe along the edge of the paper.

Joint Work

You may find it pleasant and useful to work together on many portions of this course. I encourage you to do so. BUT you must abide by the following guidelines:

• Balance. If you work together, do not work in a group that is too unbalanced. Certainly there are times when one person in a group has the key insight that solves a problem, but if the same person is always having all the insights, or if you are not contributing to the group effort, then you should probably seek out a different group.

  Balance also extends to preparation. Do not get answers or hints from someone who has completed the work before you have even begun. Ideally, each member of the group should come with roughly the same amount of background work done.

• Independence. Work that is turned in for a grade (except work explicitly designated as group work) should be written up independently. If you do this in proximatey of study partners resist the temptation to "copy" or to lean too heavily on someone else (neither of which is not allowed), mistakenly thinking that you would have been able to do the work on your own.

Attendance

Attendence is required. If you miss class, you are missing an important part of this course. In class we will be doing activities that reinforce the statistical ideas covered in the textbook, viewing videos, discussing readings, answering questions. These are difficult things to replace in any other way.

We will have a quiz each day that will also serve as an attendence check. Quizzes cannot normally be made up for students who miss class.

Preparing for class

You should bring with you each day:

• any homework due that day,
• your textbook,
• a calculator,
• any additional readings that have been handed out (put them in a folder so that you can locate them easily),
• and any other materials I announce ahead of time.

Of course, you should have read (and thought about) any assigned readings prior to coming to class. You may want to have your notes handy, especially if you have questions regarding the readings or homework.

Special Circumstances

Occassionally there are special circumstances that require that the rules and guidelines above be adjusted for a particular student. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the student to inform me of the situation as soon as possible, so that the appropriate arrangements can be made. This includes, but is not limited to, students with documented disabilities.

This page maintained by:
Randall Pruim
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Calvin College
rpruim@calvin.edu