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Dr. Morton Anne Gernsbacher's online Intro to Stats class

Dr. Morton Anne Gernsbacher has freely shared her WHOLE Psychological Statistics class with the world. No paywalls, no log-ins.  Divided up sensibly, including sections on effect sizes and Bayesian. With some assistance from Chelsea Andrews, she created this phenomenal resource for all of us to use. While I'm focusing on her stats class, be sure to check out her amazing Research Methods and Psychological Effects of the Internet courses. DO NOTE: I'm not primarily recommending this directly as a resource as a class for students. I'm recommending it to you, instructors, as a source of great, free statistical readings and teaching ideas that you could incorporate into your own classes. This is especially helpful if you are trying to teach without a textbook or if you are just looking for additional ways of explaining tough statistical concepts to your students. Here are a few things she shares that you could use: 1. Plenty of guidance for teaching via Excel/Google Sheets/App...

Explaining log v. linear data visualization, using customizable COVID data charts

I've blogged about Our World in Data before. There is a lot to appreciate at this webiste, but I would like to draw your attention to the wealth of interactive COVID visualizations you can create. Many of these visualizations include a toggle button that changes the graph from a logarithmic graph to a linear graph. Which really, really helps illustrate log data transformations to our novice statisticians. There have been occasional dust-ups over the last year with people not understanding the difference  or  being unfamiliar with log transformations , or graphs not being appropriately labeled.  I also like this example because most of my examples skew towards American content, but this data visualization tool lets you select from many countries .  ANDPLUSALSO: There is data to be had at the website. Data for days!

Seven mini-stats lessons, crammed into nine minutes.

 I found this Tweet, which leads to a brief report on BBC. A recent report from the World Obesity Federation shows COVID death rates are higher in countries where more than half the population is overweight. Cause and effect, or bad statistics? @TimHarford and @d_spiegel explore - with some maths from me. You can listen on @BBCSounds https://t.co/hevepmz8RC — stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) March 14, 2021 The BBC has a show called "More or Less," and they explained a recent research finding connecting obesity to COVID 19 deaths.  Here is the original research study . Here is a pop treatment of the original study . For more stats news, you can follow  "More or Less" on Twitter . And they cram, like, a half dozen lessons in this story. It is amazing. I've tried to highlight some of the topics touched upon in this story. How can you use it in class? I think it would be a good final exam question. You could have your students listen to the story, and highlight ...