Professor: Jeff
Johannes
Section 1 MWF 10:30-11:20a Sturges
105
Office:
South 326A
Telephone: 5403 (245-5403)
Office Hours: Monday 1:30 - 2:30p, Tuesday 8:00 - 9:00p, Wednesday 11:30a - 12:20p,
Thursday 8:00 - 9:00p, Friday 1:30 - 2:30p, and by appointment or visit
Email Address: Johannes@Geneseo.edu
Web-page:
http://www.geneseo.edu/~johannes
Course Materials
Seeing Through Statistcs
by Jessica M. Utts
Additional handouts of reading, problems, and
activities will be provided
Overview
This course will help you think about
statistics and probability, how to identify the tools needed to study a
particular problem, and how to read and critically evaluate quantitative
information presented in the media. The course format involves
extensive reading and discussion of newspaper and journal articles,
writing assignments, and student projects.
Grading
Your grade in this course will be based upon your
performance on various aspects.
The weight assigned to each is designated below:
Exams:
Project: 20%
each of 4
15%
Reading Quizzes 10%
Small Writeups 10%
Exercises
With each day of lecture, I will suggest several
exercises that are relevant for practising from that day's
lesson. I will not grade these exercises,
but will gladly discuss or look at them.
Reading Quizzes
You are responsible for reading the chapters before
the first day they are discussed in class. The schedule is given below.
Occasionally - as I see it necessary - we will have short (five minute)
reading quizzes to check that the reading is being done. As the
class shows this is not necessary, they will become less
frequent. The reading quizzes may be as straight forward as -
"Write enough to convince me you did the reading."
Project
For your project you are responsible for finding an
article in a print newspaper which references a statistical study.
Then find the original study referenced. Write your own
analysis of the study using ideas from class, then comment on the
analysis presented in the newspaper. Present your project for at
least 5 minutes during the last day of class and the final exam period.
The components of the project will be divided as follows:
10% news article, 10% journal source, 25% draft, 25% presentation
and 30% final paper..
Exams
There will be four exams
during the semester.
If you must miss an exam, it is necessary that you contact me
before the exam begins. Exam questions will be taken directly from the exercises suggested for each section.
Small Writeups
This final category is for anything that arises in
the course of the semester. I reserve the right to scale the 10%
back and score the course out of a corresponding less than 100%
Feedback
Occasionally you will be given
anonymous feedback forms. Please use them to share any thoughts
or concerns for how the course is running. Remember, the sooner
you tell me your concerns, the more I can do about them. I have
also created a web-site
which accepts anonymous comments.
If we have not yet discussed this in class, please encourage me to
create a class code. This site may also be accessed via our
course
page on a link entitled anonymous
feedback. Of
course, you are always welcome to approach me outside of class to
discuss these issues as well.
Social Psychology
Wrong answers are important. We as
individuals learn from mistakes, and as a class we learn from mistakes.
You may not enjoy being wrong, but it is valuable to the class as
a whole - and to you personally. We frequently will build correct
answers through a sequence of mistakes. I am more impressed with
wrong answers in class than with correct answers on paper. I may
not say this often, but it is essential and true. Think at all
times - do things for reasons. Your reasons are usually more
interesting than your choices. Be prepared to share your thoughts
and ideas. Perhaps most importantly "No, that's wrong." does not mean that your comment is not valuable or that you need to censor yourself. Learn from the experience, and always try again. Don't give up.
Religious Holidays
It is my policy to give
students who miss class because of observance of religious
holidays the opportunity to make up missed work. You are
responsible for notifying me by September 5 of plans to observe a
holiday.
Schedule (subject to change)
Date
Topic
August 25 Introduction
27
Chapter 1
29 2
September 3 3
5
3
8 4
10 5
12 6
15
6
17 Review
19
Exam 1
22
7
Submit newspaper source for project.
24
7
26
8
29
9
October 1
10
3
10
6
11
Submit journal source for project
8
12
10
12
15 Review
17 Exam 2
20
13
22
13
Submit complete draft of project.
24
13
27
14
29
15
31
16
November 3 16
5
Review
7
Exam 3
10
17
12
19
14
20
17
Survey
19
21
21
21
24
22
1
23
3 review
5
Exam 4
8
Project
Presentations Submit written final project.
Friday, December 12 8 - 11a Project Presentations