By my count, that’s about how many new lessons we have left to teach this year,1 before we finish the regular portion of the course,2 after which the “real work”3 begins. 4

Currently, we’re teaching Type I/II errors and statistical power.

Rather, we’re just barely5 scraping the surface of statistical power – a topic that we barely touch and hardly do justice.6

Last year at this time, we were on the verge of losing the 3rd of the three “ice” days.7 Oftentimes I think back with wonder about how we were able to make it through losing three A-days while barely skipping a beat.8

And actually, now that I know that it’s possible to lose three class days and still make it through relatively unscathed, I’d been halfway hoping for some ice to come our way…

Sadly, no (d)ice.

1. Only 8! But if you turn that “8” on its side, you get “infinity” — which, while technically not a number, is closer to what it’ll feel like, due in part to the numerous “fluff” days that are sprinkled into the calendar for the next couple of units. [↩]
2. which I like to think of as the “regular season” [↩]
3. AP Exam prep — the portion of the course that I think of as “the playoffs” [↩]
4. If you’re curious about the 8 lessons: 2-prop z; 1-sample t; 2-sample t; matched pairs; chi-squared GOF; chi-squared 2-way; inference with slope. That’s seven, but at least one of them gets split over two days. I did say “about”… [↩]
5. and oh, I do mean BARELY [↩]
6. but given the complexity of the topic, possibly not a bad idea. [↩]
7. Along with a half-day which proved to be wholly unnecessary… but was surely a politicized over-compensation for not deciding to cancel school for the 2nd ice day until after some kids had gotten to school. [↩]
8. It was only possible due to the aforementioned “fluff” days… [↩]

Absolutely freaking impeccable timing on the part of the genius(es) at xkcd.1

1. Discovered this beaut on the heels of teaching the hypothesis testing lesson SIX times in a row. This is one of the #firstworldproblem pains of only teaching one prep – you have to teach every lesson six times in a row. Not that I’m actually complaining. [↩]

Every year around this time, things finally start to mesh and fall into place the way you had envisioned from the beginning.1

It’s the sweet spot of the journey at which the screeching actually starts to sound like music.2

Monday, we start teaching kids to reject the Ho.3

They say if ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And by all accounts, very little was “broken” in last year’s journey.

But there was one particular bump in the road last year that came in the form of major exam #7.4 A number of students actually told me that they felt that particular exam was on the edge of “unfair” and unlike what they had practiced in class. I’m not sure how others in my profession take such feedback, but personally, I take stuff like that to heart.5

So the one major adjustment to our program for this campaign came in rewriting the review and exam for this particular segment of the course.6

Well, that exam is tomorrow.

We’ll see how it goes.7

1. If only it didn’t take 19 weeks to get here! [↩]
2. Or it’s merely the calm before the storm — a.k.a., the first major exam of the Spring semester… a.k.a., tomorrow. [↩]
3. #neveraccepttheHo [↩]
4. we have ten major exams throughout the year, before the AP Exam. [↩]
5. Hey, if my students feel comfortable enough with me to actually share that with me, I figure there’s too much smoke for there not to be a fire. [↩]
6. Which, by the way, if you’re curious as to how long it take to rewrite a full exam for my Statistics class: it basically takes two full weekends. If done during the summer break, anywhere from 3-4 days of fulltime work. Like writing a paper, you go through multiple drafts and edits and revisions, etc. [↩]
7. Of course, the first exam after Winter break universally stinks… so………. [↩]

Today was the first day of inferential statistics1 — a.k.a., the beginning of the final forty percent of the course.

This campaign has not been without its challenges, but as I got ready to teach today’s classes I wondered about how we got through the first sixty so briskly.2

We’re into the 18th week of the new school year, and I’m at the point now where every morning when I arrive at work, it almost seems strange to me that the new place feels normal.3

Surely, there is a ways to go, but I’m going to wake up exactly four months from now,4 and it’ll feel like tomorrow.

For now, however, today marked the start of the most brutal three-and-half weeks of the course.5

1. we start with one sample confidence intervals for large samples — a.k.a., 1-prop z-intervals [↩]
2. Incidentally, I probably also had my worst teaching day of the year this morning. Just goes to show, we all have our off-days. [↩]
3. Yet ironically, I still have days where we’ll get to 4:05pm and I’ll wonder why the bell isn’t ringing. [↩]
4. on Exam Day number five [↩]
5. If you’re curioous: intro to confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, type I/II errors, and power. [↩]

Every once in a handful of blue moons, society is gifted with an individual that is so good at what they do, that brings so much passion and joy to what they do, that you stop, and take some time out of your life to watch them do their thing, because getting the chance to see them on their stage, in their element, is just that special.

Freshman year of college, my Dobie suite-mates and I would often gather around the TV in the evenings to catch SportsCenter so that — among other things1 — we could see him going at it and doing his thing — on his stage, in his element. It was damn near family hour for us. And it never got old.

Damn. There isn’t much I can say to do his memory justice, but I will say this:

Nowadays, anytime I turn my pillow over in the middle of the night, I think about Stuart Scott.

R.I.P., Stuart Scott.

1. We were all huge sports fans, in particular basketball fans. Among other things, that was the year Dennis Rodman joined the Bulls, when they went on to win 72 games. [↩]