The Ingrham, writing for The Washington Post, used data to investigate the claim that undocumented  immigrants are a large source of crime.  You may hit a paywall when you try to access this piece, FYI. Ingraham provides two pieces of evidence that suggest that undocumented immigrants are NOT a large source of crime. He draws on a  policy brief from the Cato Institute and a research study by Light and Miller  for his arguments. The Cato Institute policy brief   about illegal immigration and crime is actually part of a much larger study . It provides a nice conceptual example of a 3 (citizenship status: Native born, Undocumented Immigrant, Legal Immigrant) x 3 (Crime Type: All crimes, homicide, larceny) ANOVA. I also like that this data shows criminal conviction rates per 100K people, thus eliminating any base rate issues when comparing groups. From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-i...

Pew Research created a survey that asks participants to identify news statements as opinions or facts. They had 5000+ complete this survey AND you can complete the survey and see your results.  Description of quiz AND research methodology! An example question from the survey. This one made me think of Ron Swanson. How to use in Stats/RM: 1. A good way of introducing the truism "The plural of anecdote isn't data.". Facts and opinions aren't always the same thing, and distinguishing between the two is key to scientific thinking. Ask your student think of of objective data that could prove or disprove these statements. Get them thinking like researchers, developing hypotheses AND operationalizing those hypotheses. 2. At the end of the quiz, they describe your score in terms of percentiles. Specifically, in terms of the percentages of users who scored above and below you on the quiz items. 3. You can also access Pew's report of their survey f...

Don't you love it when research backs up your lifestyle? My kids LOVE dancing. We have been able to get both kids hooked on OK GO and Queen and Metallica. The big kid's favorite song is "Tell Me Something Good" by Chaka Khan and the little kid prefer's "Master of Puppets". We all like to dance together. My kids, husband, and sister dancing. Now, research suggests that our big, loud group activity may increase empathy in our kids. NPR summarized Dr. Laura Cirelli's research looking at 14 m.o.'s and whether they 1) helped or 2) did not help a stranger who either 1) danced in sync with them or 2) danced, but not in sync, with the child. She found (in multiple studies) that kids offer more assistance after they danced in sync with an adult.  How to use in class: 1) Here is fake chi-square, test of independence, data you can use in class. It IS NOT the data from the research but mimics the findings of the research. "Synced?" re...

In just over five minutes, this concise, clear TEDed talk that explains a) false positives, b) base rate fallacy, and c) conditional probability. And it manages to explain each of those three concepts individual while also showing how those three concepts interact. That's a lot of bang for your buck. **Note: This video is sort of a commercial for Brilliant.org, which claims to teach critical thinking via riddles and questions. FYI.

1. Did you know that the Society for the Teaching of Psychology maintains Project Syllabus ? This is a list of juried syllabi for every psychology class imaginable. I went through the process of submitting my undergraduate Positive Psychology syllabus . In addition to performing a bit of national service, I also had the chance to improve my syllabi via peer review guided by the Project Syllabus rubric . In particular, I appreciated the suggestion to clearly spell out WHY I use the assessments that I use. I already had included my employer-compulsory linkages between learning outcomes and course assessment, but I added information, in plain English, regarding what I hope my students learn from the different assignments in the course. Project Syllabus includes hundreds of these juried syllabi. This list includes 12 different statistics classes as well as over 20 research methods classes. I highly recommend submitting your own syllabi for a great class that you teach, or using this...

I use a syllabus in my stats class, ergo making this not-statsy resource relevant to a blog about teaching statistics. Alright, I hate putting Week 1, Week 2, etc. on my syllabus, as much for myself as for my students. But, revising my syllabus every semester and trying to put the dates in can be annoying. No more. Caleb McDaniel ( @wcaleb ) created the "Generic Syllabus Maker" , which allows you to select the days of the week when you teach, and the start and end dates of your semester, and returns the class meeting dates in the format you select. 

Positive, interactive linear relationships, y'all. Chase, of Overflow Data , created a scatter plot that finds that as income goes up, so does rent. Pretty intuitive, right? I think intuitive examples are good for students. Cursor over the dots to see what metro area each dot represents, or use the search function to find your locale and personalize the lesson a wee bit for your students.