Speaker | Transcript |
| Steve | OK, so this is teaching introductory biostatistics using JMP overcoming the fear factor. My name is Steve Figard I'm the director of the Cancer Research Lab at Bob Jones University. I have actually also published a book. |
| Through SAS press biostatistics using jump. |
| Our introduction to biostatistics with Jim, I guess the, the official title. And what we want to cover today is how to teach or some thoughts. |
| On how to teach introductory biostatistics to sophomore level biology majors and part of the reason this is such an interesting topic is there is a problem that |
| We don't always realize, particularly those of us that like to go to discovery conferences, and that's the fact that we are the outliers in this we enjoy statistics. We love doing data analytics and we don't realize that there are that that actually makes this sort of a weird |
| I have a good friend here on faculty who is a medical doctor and he wants saw me with my I love bias. I love statistics will help him on that I got at the Trump discovery conference. And he looked at me and said, you realize that proofs are clinically insane. |
| Or my response back to him was. Yeah, but you know you need people like us, we sometimes forget that there are a lot of people that actually are scared of statistics. |
| And biology majors in particular, particularly those that are starting off identify very much with this quotation from biostatistics text. |
| Let us consider the likely scenario that you are a student of the bio sciences, whether you were at biomedical a physiologist and behavioral ecologist, or whatever. |
| You'd like learning about living things you enjoy learning about the human body bugs and plants. |
| Now, lo and behold, you have been forced to take a course that will make you do things with numbers and tread. Oh, dread even do something with numbers using a computer. You have probably decided that people who are making you do this or mindless status. |
| So I'm those of us those there's actually a large body of people out there. The thing we in fact our mind, let's say to us, or at least clinically insane. |
| And just to prove the point if you don't think that's the case, I start off my course asking my students to provide a one more description of how they feel. One day, one about taking my course. |
| And this is the workflow that I actually created using the text explorer in jump. And you'll notice that |
| The majority tend to be nervous or unsure or afraid and anxious, although we do have some that are excited or intrigued. When I find intriguing that |
| Anyone would use the word a trained to describe about statistics course that's the problem before. So how do we deal with that. So I want to share some insights that I've gained to date using junk. |
| don't require memorization, because in real life statistics are generally accomplished in consultation with others using other resources, besides yourself. You don't have to rely upon your memory. |
| And how can we go about doing that. Well, we have plenty of in class exercises and case studies that are open book and open teacher |
| This allows us to also overcome the initial learning curve for learning how to use jump because these students have never jumped before. So it's not just statistics that they're learning, but they have to actually learn the software package. |
| By working with open book and open teacher, being able to ask questions as they start off, they can |
| Learn these things, not by memorizing them, but just by prep from practice. I encourage collaboration amongst themselves that they don't just rely upon me to teacher to |
| Learn these things that for successful exams that they have to take, but they are encouraged to collaborate with each other and teach help teach each other so that |
| Any teacher will tell you get that you've learned best whenever you actually have to teach someone else. |
| So I encourage collaboration in class. I use take home exams, because again, in real life, you generally don't have one hour to solve the problem, you are |
| Told to go finish working a problem and report back as soon as possible and you generally have more time to |
| Look at other resources and try to figure things out. So I use take home exams, of course, that does Fred provide the potential of cheating on the exam, but |
| Generally, I can tell. You can tell pretty easily if someone's doing if you set up the exam properly, you can tell if they're they're cheating or not. |
| Another point is I provide plenty of information and resources and flow charts and things so that jump is actually not an issue that learning how to use jump. |
| I provide them tools that allow them to and if they figured out that they want to do a T test where in jumped you find the t test. So it jump itself is not the obstacle to learning the by statistics are learning how to |
| Use the tools or to interpret the results they force actually has more stress on how to interpret the results and actually achieve real life solutions, then it does the mechanics of jump. |
| Another point I found that is seems to be helpful is to share your enthusiasm. Whenever you present or teach the course. Make sure that as you're standing in front of your students. They can see that you're having fun up there. |
| You want to approach your class as a mentor. |
| Wanting to help your students not as the grand Grand Poobah and high executioner statistics that they should bow down before |
| Don't be afraid to admit that you don't know something, of course you want to if it's something important that they they need to know and you really should know, then you get back to them and you go look it up yourself. |
| You want to also show your enthusiasm by using examples that show the relevance of biostatistics to what the students actually need. |
| My first lecture on the course. Actually, I showed them literature from the side from the biomedical and biological literature abstracts figure legends and things that incorporate |
| Statistical terminology that if you don't have any clue what that means. You have no idea how to read that paper have no ideas on how to understand that paper so I you want to use examples that are relevant to the different areas of study that the students are actually interested in |
| And last point I would say is employee as much humor as you can muster and your interactions with your students, you want to be relaxed and interact with your students as much as possible. |
| Part of that is you want to begin your collection of means now so that whenever you actually |
| Show things that I mean there's actually a fair amount of very humorous cartoons and things out there related to statistics and to some of the foibles because work via statisticians statisticians in general are still human beings and we still have our foibles and follies so |
| There's |
| More I could say, but we're limited because this is a poster and I will |
| Welcome. Any further comments or thoughts in the future through communications with through sharp and |
| Encourage you shameless plug here to look up my introduction to biostatistics with jump so that you can potentially see whether or not that might be useful in your own efforts to understand statistics and or to actually use it to teach your students. |
