The thing about my way of teaching stats is that my cool, novel examples get old really fast. Like, pop culture is on a thirty-day cycle. Anyway, YEARS ago, 2014 to be exact, I blogged about illustrating bimodal data distributions using baby name data from the Social Security Administration. Specifically, when an older name comes back into vogue, it has a bimodal distribution when you plot time on the X axis. I stand by this example. However, all of the data illustrations come from 2014. When our traditionally aged college students were 6 or 7. Which makes this example feel a little stale. However, here is some data, courtesy of Redditor fevaah , showing old names that are back in vogue through 2025 ! And Eleanor, Violet, Nora, and Hazel are here, illustrating bimodal distributions for a new generation. If you used my old baby-name data, this is a quick, easy refresh for your lectures (or a fun new addition if you didn't). If this idea was help...
Xkcd is a gift to Statisitcs instructors. Author Randall Monroe shares his humor and statistics knowledge. I think that many of his comics can be used as extra credit points, in that you don't get the joke unless you get the conceptual statistical knowledge behind the joke.
NOTE: I have included images here, but you really, really should go to the original comics and cursor over for the messages to view the alternative text.
NOTE TWO: This is not a comprehensive list but I will try to update it as Monroe shares more comics.
To teach APA formatting:
To explain error bars:
T-test and the t-curve:
Linear relationships:
The Normal Curve:
Cherry picking, p-hacking, and other statistical ills:
Line fitting:
NOTE: I have included images here, but you really, really should go to the original comics and cursor over for the messages to view the alternative text.
NOTE TWO: This is not a comprehensive list but I will try to update it as Monroe shares more comics.
To teach APA formatting:
 |
| https://xkcd.com/833/ |
To explain sufficient sample size in research: |
| https://xkcd.com/507/ |
To explain good statistics manners/how to appropriately ask for stats help:
 |
| https://m.xkcd.com/2116/ |
To explain error bars:
 |
| https://xkcd.com/2110/ |
T-test and the t-curve:
 |
| https://xkcd.com/2110/ |
 |
| https://xkcd.com/605/ |
The Normal Curve:
 |
| https://xkcd.com/2118/ |
Cherry picking, p-hacking, and other statistical ills:
 |
| https://xkcd.com/1781/ |
Line fitting:
 |
| https://xkcd.com/2048/ |