Introductory Statistics Courses and Personnel
- What introductory statistics courses are offered?
- How is the teaching of undergraduate courses organized?
- What is the purpose of introductory statistics in the College?
The Department offers several undergraduate courses to introduce various audiences to statistics. Many are offered as multi-section courses available most quarters. Some are offered only once or twice, but to a fairly large audience. Either way, introductory courses are often staffed by more than one course assisant and more than one grader (and sometimes more than one lecturer).
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What introductory statistics courses are offered?
A description of the introductory courses in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago can be found in the document Courses for Undergraduates offered by the Department of Statistics. Statistics 20000, 22000 and 23400 are offered in the Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters. The Stat 24400/24500 sequence is offered twice: Autumn/Winter and Winter/Spring. Stat 22000 is offered also in the Summer. Stat 22000 can be used as the prerequisite for some other 200xx-level statistics courses and to fulfill requirements for some departments, whereas Stat 20000 fulfills part of the mathematical sciences core requirement, but cannot be used as the prerequisite for some higher 2xx00-level statistics courses. Stat 23400 is a post-calculus introduction to statistics (essentially, Stat 23400 = Stat 22000 plus some statistical theory) and is primarily taken by economics students as prerequisite for their econometrics courses. Stat 24400/24500 is a two-quarter introduction to statistics and mathematical statistics and is taken by statistics and mathematics majors, honors-level students in the sciences and social sciences, Master's students in Statistics, and graduate students from a variety of disciplines.
You may need to help students find an appropriate introductory course to meet their needs and mathematical preparation.
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How is the teaching of undergraduate courses organized?
Two main organizational varieties have been used recently for courses with two (or more) sections (Stat 20000, 22000, 23400). In the first variety, there are two (or more) instructors (e.g., one faculty and one student lecturer or two student lecturers – one more experienced). In the second version, there is just one instructor (faculty or student lecturer) for all sections. In either case, there will also be two (or more) course assistants and graders.
Generally, the instructor(s) teach parallel sections of the course. They coordinate lecture topics, use the same homework and homework solutions, and administer the same midterm, quizzes and final. Grades should be assigned on a comparable scale across sections, but allowances for individual cases can be made. The course assistants work for all instructors and share duties for all sections. The grader(s) may also work for all sections together or separately, by section.
If all of the instructors for a course are students, they should consult about course planning and implementation with the Senior Lecturer in charge of teaching. Senior students who have taught the course before also are a terrific resource for any student lecturer.
Generally, students in the various sections of a course attend (weekly) discussion sessions together. These discussion sessions are led by the course assistants and ideally, have just 15-25 students each. If sessions are any larger, they are too large for questions and participation. Additional session times should be added, as needed. Thus, some course assistants may lead more than one session per week. If you are assigned to be a course assistant, discuss the number and times of sessions with the instructor for your course. Be sure to see the Department Administrative Assistant to schedule/reserve a room for each of your session times.
Single-section courses may also have multiple course assistants, discussion sessions and graders depending on enrollment levels.
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What is the purpose of introductory statistics in the College?
In order to answer this question, it is important to know a little bit about the University of Chicago undergraduate program and the students in your class. You can plan ahead by learning something of the College, but doing so does not replace asking your students about themselves (e.g., major, year, reason for taking course, mathematics preparation, expectations of the course) during the first week. A student information sheet can be used to get information on students, ask questions about the students, get schedule information that will be useful for setting recitation and office hour times, and collecting data for use in class. Students usually "shop" for classes during the first week, so having the question forms available for the first 2-3 class periods is a good idea.
The undergraduates at the college must complete a common core (general education – described in the Courses and Programs of Study) consisting of humanities, civilization studies and the arts (6 quarters), natural and mathematical sciences (6 quarters), social sciences (3 quarters), language competence (up to three quarters), and physical education (up to 3 credits). Forty-two quarter courses, not including physical education classes, are needed to graduate.
The core areas generally are fulfilled by taking sequences of courses that introduce students to a discipline or area of knowledge. Students read primary articles and debate major tenets. They are asked to read, think, and write. The core is intended to be interdisciplinary and expose connections among areas of knowledge. You could say that students also must learn to revise their writing, integrate themes during a course, and link ideas in one field to those in related fields. One instructor in the core, Professor Moishe Postone, has said that one goal of the core is to show students that a field includes areas of debate and confusion, that it is interesting, and that with effort it can be understood.
In the core, one quarter of introductory statistics (20000) satisfies the requirement in mathematics. Thus, some students in introductory statistics might not have a great deal of mathematical or scientific background (Stat 20000 does not have a calculus prerequisite) and think of the course as part of the common core program. The goals of the course could be similar to those of other core courses that introduce a discipline. Since, for some students, Stat 20000 will be their only exposure to statistics, it is important to make the presentation of statistics interesting.
On the other hand, some undergraduate concentrations (e.g., biology) require students to take Stat 22000, which has a one-quarter calculus prerequisite. Economics students are required to take Stat 23400, which requires a full year of calculus and explores some statistical theory. In economics, students are required to take econometrics (Econ 20900 or 21000) after Stat 23400. Thus, statistics might be viewed by these students as a "service" course – a course in preparation for courses within their own department. Some students might be taking the course after their sophomore years and be better able to perceive the use of statistics and probability in their own fields, but many students do take statistics in their first year.
Although the preparation-for-further-study aspect of the introductory statistics course is undeniably true, the class is still the students' introduction to the discipline of statistics. Statistics has a lot to say about discovery and standards of proof in science and other fields. Being interesting and valuable in its own right, the course does not have to be simply a list of definitions leading to some methods, such as regression. As an introduction to the discipline, the course can discuss topics such as the relationship between inferential procedures and sampling distributions of estimators and whether one can infer causality based on regression relationships. In other words, a broader preparation for thinking about probability and statistics.
Think of the introductory statistics course as an introduction to how statisticians think.
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Last modified: September 5, 2008