Screenshot from Bunnies, Dragons and the ‘Normal’ World: Central Limit Theorem | The New York Times

The latest in a series of guest blog posts from students in the GCCUT program course GRAD 599. GRAD 599 is a self-directed learning experience, providing structure and context for professional development opportunities in teaching, such as workshops, seminars, webinars, symposia, and other relevant programming.

By Heather Kitada

My name is Heather, and I’m a fourth year Ph.D. student in statistics. In addition to my research obligations, I have been the lab instructor for several undergraduate and graduate level statistics courses. I love mathematical sciences, and they have always fascinated me. I am inspired by the ubiquitous nature of mathematics and am engrossed in the endeavor to understand variability and attempt to model the world around me.

However, in the classroom, I seem to have a problem engaging my students and convincing them that the subject matter applies to their lives. Many of our undergraduate courses are service courses for other departments and the students often just view them as graduation requirements. Therefore, I have observed that students often lack the motivation and interest in the subject of statistics. To overcome this, I utilize the following strategies.

My strategies to engage students

1. I try to spark student interest while in lab by incorporating real world examples and drawing connections between the topics covered.
2. I create a community of learners by offering opportunities for discussion that allow students to grapple with challenging topics and stimulate introspection.
3. I have an interest in informal education utilizing diverse digital resources. Due to the increased accessibility and students comfort with internet resources, this enables them to achieve some independence and ownership for their learning.
4. I allow students and the discussion to take tangents that will enrich the learning experience.

With these traits in mind, I found a fun and cute example that explains several complex statistical concepts such as sampling variability, sample size, and the central limit theorem. This video is hosted by the New York Times and was created by CreatureCast and is entitled “Bunnies, Dragons and the ‘Normal’ World: Central Limit Theorem”.

I also found this video on TED by author John Green entitled “The nerd’s guide to learning everything online”, which I enjoyed and took some inspiration from.