Before I get into yesterday’s classes, because I don’t have a ton to say about them (they were a repeat of Tuesday’s classes, essentially) I learned something last night about AP Statistics in my “Applied Research Design and Analysis in Education I” also called “Non-Parametric Statistics 1” class.
What I learned is that AP Stats is absolutely a college level, advanced as heck, class. This class has two pre-reqs, neither of which I have taken. On the first day of class we did binomial stats, and last night we did Chi-Square Goodness of Fit. Next week we are doing Chi-Square test of homogeneity and independence.
That’s right. In the first three weeks of a 700 level class (that is the highest level that UNR has, I know that numbering schema’s differ from Uni to Uni) we are only covering topics that are taught in AP Stats. After 2 pre-req classes. That I didn’t take (thank you Dr. Quinn for that most excellent advice). I think the 4th week is where half of the content is new-ish. The vocab and structure used in “Qualitative Research in Education” has also been a nice review of AP Stats vocab so far.
If you ever doubt that AP Stats is not a college level class, throw those doubts away. Bury them. Ignore them. AP Stats is absolutely a fantastic class for preparing learners for college.
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On to my classes. Just a quick update to the AP Stats exercise of “I have, Who Has” from my last post.
Three tweets radically changed how I will be teaching this and using this technique in the future:
@gwaddellnvhs I’m curious about having them tape them together into a big loop… — S T (@druinok) September 4, 2014
@druinok @gwaddellnvhs I do competitions between two groups. Who gets it first
— Jennifer Fairbanks (@HHSmath) September 4, 2014
Much better instructions, and I will be doing that in the future.
As for my Algebra Learners, who were frustrated with the whole speed dating exercise last class class? They rocked it out of the park and were excited at the end of class.
They are coming along I think.
Glenn, glad to hear about your personal confirmation regarding AP Stats. I often am confused and disheartened when I hear the contrary. Thankfully, my conversations with college professors also confirm that we are having students do in AP Stats is on track with college intro classes.
I agree, Amy. And speaking with learners who return from college in their first and second years, they tell me the same thing as well. The AP courses are absolutely preparing them for college well. I think we are not communicating those actual benefits well enough at the school level though.