Jon Oaks

Month: May 2012

  • Guessing Ages Activity

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    This semester I tried a Guessing Ages Activity as a first day activity in my statistics classes.  My version of the activity is adapted from page 11 of Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks.  I found this activity to be a good ice breaker for the first day of class.  The students really enjoyed working…

  • 1.653*Pi Day

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    Happy 1.653*Pi (5/19) Day!   Yes, I know that Pi Day was way back on 3/14 and that 2*Pi Day is coming up on 6/28.   But celebrating 1.653*Pi Day is a little more fun, don’t you think?  Here are few resources that you may be able to use in your classroom: Pi Day Activity…

  • Justin Verlander’s One Hitter

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    Warning:  I don’t normally write about baseball.  But you can’t deny that being at Justin Verlander’s One Hitter game is something special. I have to admit that I went into this game not expecting much from the Detroit Tigers.  The Tigers should have been able to sweep the Twins and they didn’t.  Villarreal shouldn’t have…

  • My Search for a New Laptop

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    This week I bought a new laptop.  My search came down to the final three.  I ended up buying the Toshiba, but I thought it might be helpful to others to post the thoughts that went through my mind while picking between the three, as well as the specs on each of the machines from…

  • Teaching Control Charts

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    The other day in my statistics class, I talked about Control Charts.  I really wanted to drive home the point about the difference between individual runs charts and control charts.  So, I did a version of Deming’s Experiment with my students. First of all, it was very difficult to get 1,000 marbles on very short…

  • Computer Tips and Tricks

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    This past week I have had to do a few things on the computer that appear not to be common knowledge.  Here is a brief run-down of computer tips and tricks that I think might be useful to everyone: Microsoft Excel The University of Wisconsin-EauClaire has a wonderful summary of functions needed to use Excel…

  • Teaching the Runs Test for Randomness

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    The other day in my statistics class, I was teaching the runs test for randomness.  One of my students keeps on asking for an in-class activity, and it happened that I had an extra half-an-hour of class time to spare.  So, I adapted this famous teaching experiment for use in my own class. The set-up:…

  • Observations on Plotting Points in Pre-Algebra

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    Disclaimer:  Some of this might seem very, very obvious.  But sometimes it’s good to state the obvious, right? This semester I decided to teach plotting points differently than I have in the past. I started the lesson by handing each student a piece of graph paper and a ruler.  Yes, I know college students should probably…