"(Algorithms) are used so heavily, they don't just predict the future, they are the future." -Cathy O'Neil ^This quote from this NPR story made me punch the air in my little Subaru after dropping my kid off to school. What a great sentence. There are many great one-liners in this little five-minute review of algorithms. This NPR story by Dina Temple-Raston is a great primer for All The Ethical Issues Related To Algorithms, accessible to non- or novice-statisticians. It clocks in at just under five minutes, perfect as a discussion prompt or quick introduction to the topic. How to use in class: They talk about regression without ever saying "regression": "Algorithms use past patterns of success to predict the future." So, regression, right? Fancy regression, but that one line can take this fancy talk of algorithms and make it more applicable to your students. Sometimes, I feel like I'm just waving my hands when I try to explain thi...

"I believe that we owe it to our children to prepare them for a world they will encounter, a world driven by data. Basic data fluency is a requirement, not just for most good jobs, but for navigating life more generally." -Steven Levitt Preach it, Steve. This edition of the Freakonomics podcast featured guest host Steven Levitt. He dedicated his episode to providing evidence for an overhaul of America's K-12 math curriculum. He argues that our kids need more information on data fluency. I'm not one to swoon over a podcast dedicated to math curriculums, but this one is about the history of how we teach math, the realities of the pressures our teachers face, and solutions. It is fascinating. You need to sit and listen to the whole thing, but here are some highlights: Our math curriculum was designed to help America fight the Space Race (yes, the one back in the 1960s). For a world without calculators. And not much has changed. Quick idea for teaching regr...

While teaching measures of central tendency in Intro stats, I have shrugged and said: "Yeah, mean and average are the same thing, I don't know why there are two words. Statisticians say mean so we'll say mean in this class." I now have a better explanation than that non-explanation, as verbalized by this podcast: The average is thrown around colloquially and can refer to mode, while mean can always be defined with a formula. This is a fun podcast that describes mode vs. mean, but it also describes the research the rabbit hole we sometimes go down when a seemingly straightforward question becomes downright intractable. Here, the question is: What is the modal American? The Planet Money Team, with the help of FiveThirtyEight's Ben Castlemen, eventually had to go non-parametric and divide people into broad categories and figure out which category had the biggest N. Here is the description of how they divided up : And, like, they had SO MANY CELLS in their des...