TEACHING RESOURCES
Get lesson ideas from fun articles that describe how to use some of the most important statistical tools in Minitab.
There’s a low probability of escaping an introductory statistics course without learning how to construct a confidence interval for the mean. Typically, you start with a sample dataset and then use it to describe a range of likely values for the mean of the entire population. But what if you take a sample from a population you know nothing about? Welcome to bootstrapping. Read this article to learn how you can use bootstrapping with Minitab Express to create a confidence interval for the mean and demonstrate the concept of a sampling distribution.
One of the most important statistical concepts to understand is the central limit theorem. This article explains the central limit theorem and how to demonstrate it using common examples, including the roll of a die and the birthdays of Major League Baseball players. Michelle Paret and Eston Martz, Minitab News, August 2009.
Not everyone enjoys learning about statistics. But adding M&M’s to the lesson is a fun way to make it more appealing. This article reveals how M&M’s can give students hands-on experience with statistics and Minitab Statistical Software. Michelle Paret and Eston Martz, Minitab News, August 2008.
Given all of the factors that influence it, the weather is an undeniably complex process—and like any process, it can exhibit a lot of variation. However, if you’re going to make any big plans based on weather and you want to minimize the variation, the data we collected suggest it’s best to rely on the next-day forecast. Michelle Paret and Eston Martz, Minitab News, December 2011.
The best introductory statistics instructors know that merely memorizing how to perform procedures isn’t enough—students should understand what their results really mean. Over 15 years of teaching, Dr. Julie Belock, a professor at Salem State University, has developed a number of student projects that explore the meaning behind statistical techniques. In a paper presented at the 25th Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, Belock tackles three of the concepts students find most challenging by teaching with Minitab Statistical Software.
Learning statistics is easier when students can connect their lessons with hands-on experiences. Students in one New Jersey community do that by combining an afternoon of fun with serious data collection, and then analyzing and interpreting the results with Minitab Statistical Software.The approach their teachers took to giving them hands-on experience is one that could be easily replicated in other schools, with variations driven by the activities available in the community.
This article highlights several basic tools in Minitab Statistical Software that will help you interpret your survey data accurately. Eston Martz and Michelle Paret, Minitab News, February 2011.
This article highlights more sophisticated techniques, including 2-sample t-tests, proportion tests, ANOVA and regression, to dig deeper into survey data. Eston Martz and Michelle Paret, Minitab News, March 2011.
This article highlights the teaching of hypothesis tests with an online computer game, and how statistical software such as Minitab can help analyze the data students create. Eston Martz, March 2013.