Introduction to Statistics -Math 105

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  Introduction to Statistics (Math 105)
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Mathematics/Statistics course for undergraduate students by Kathy Gray at California State University, Chico. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to develop my own materials was to save the students money and also teach the topics using my own style . Most student access the open textbook Currently students access material in BB Learn and MyStatLab. In the spring of 2022 I will not require MyStatLab for the U-course Math 105 section. 

Mathematics 105
Brief Description of course highlights:  This course covers the following topics: summary of numerical data, distributions, linear regression, and introduction to statistical inference. StatCrunch is used when statistical software is needed.

Student population:  Intro to Statistics is a general ed class composed mostly of Freshmen although the class tends to consist of all grade levels. It serves a wide range of majors and it is a pre-req for a number of upper-level discipline specific statistics classes. The students come from a wide range of socio-economic demographics. There are co-req sections where students are deemed not “college math ready” and non-coreq sections where students are deemed “college math ready”. Starting in the spring of 2022, there will be a U-course section of Math 105 which will be a project-based class. The enrollment for all Math 105 sections is around 650 students in the fall and 800 in the spring.
Learning or student outcomes:  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Construct descriptive graphs
• Interpret descriptive graphs
• Understand the concepts of measures of center, variability, outliers, associations
• Be able to use the normal distribution to answer probability questions
• Use linear regression to model multivariate data
• Use technology to construct confidence intervals and perform a hypothesis test
• Interpret in context of the problem a confidence interval
• Conduct a hypothesis test
• Use statistical software to conduct a statistical analysis

Key challenges faced and how resolved: My biggest challenge is coming up with End of Chapter problems and also good data sets. For such a large class it is important to have questions that are algorithmic in nature, otherwise answers will spread like wildfire and students won’t learn the material. This is the reason that I am still using MyStatLab as the online platform for the class. 

Kathy Gray 
California State University, Chico 

Mathematics

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. My motivation to develop my own materials was to save the students money and also teach the topics using my own style.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I browsed OER sites and I have attended many workshops on teaching introductory statistics.

Sharing Best Practices: The one thing I wish I did was attend the workshop before I started my project. I really didn’t understand what OER is all about. 

As far as sharing my experience, once my U-course is fully developed I will try to promote it at conferences and workshops.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: 

Brief Description: The class combines online lectures, active learning and group work. The U-course will promote project-based learning. In those ways I think it supports a diverse student population.

For the Math 105 (Introduction to Statistics) U-course I will be using my own material that I created. This includes:

10 chapters of course notes that I created. Portions of the course notes have material from OER resources.
Videos that correlate to each chapter of notes.
13 online labs
A interactive online google journal that I created (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JLs5JxsrSEugcDAMRuPOtVTwDsXC2s2dqIFUcrVtsMw/edit?usp=sharing)
Quiz questions in BB Learn after each video

Students enrolled in the U-course will be required to purchase a course packet and also StatCrunch which is a statistical software package.

Learning Objectives:  The objective of this course is to provide students with an understanding of statistical concepts including: data visualizations, measures of center and dispersion, the normal distribution, confidence intervals, regression, hypothesis testing. Math 105 provides students an opportunity to analyze real data sets using technology. Students will learn the fundamentals of collecting, analyzing, drawing conclusions, and making decisions from data. Students will learn how to use statistical software to create graphics and summarize data.
Student access:  Currently students access material in BB Learn and MyStatLab. In the spring of 2022 I will not require MyStatLab for the U-course Math 105 section.
Students currently pay $75 for MyStatLab and $20 for the course packet for a total of $95 for the required Math 105 materials. The technologies are ready available although I am not really sure what is meant by “readily available”. As far as affordability, I don’t think the publishing company is charging a ridiculous amount but if we can reduce the cost without sacrificing quality that would of course be better.

Cost Savings:  Traditionally, students would purchase the course packet and MyStatLab. MyStatLab which includes StatCrunch costs students $75. Therefore, students enrolled in the Math 105 U-course will save $60 (cost of MyStatLab minus cost of StatCrunch). The U-course enrollment this semester was capped at 38 students and has a current enrollment of 22 students. Future enrollments are expected to be capped at 100 students.
Spring 2022 I will be using the OER project materials in the U-course with the anticipation of 100 students being enrolled. They will need to purchase StatCrunch (statistical software) which currently costs $15 and the course packet which generally runs around $20. The current situation is that students by MyStatLab for $75 (this includes StatCrunch) and the course packet. Therefore, each student will save $60 for a total savings of $6000 for the entire class. I am currently considering dropping the StatCrunch requirement for the U-course, however, this will likely not happen until the following fall (2022) because I would need to redo my notes and videos to not include Statcrunch instruction. I am currently considering using ISLE (Integrated Statistics Learning Enviroment) which is an “e-learning platform for creating and delivering interactive learning content.” (http://www.stat.cmu.edu/isle/index.html) If this is adopted then students would not have to purchase StatCrunch and the savings for the U-course students would be $75 per student per semester.