First day of class update

I got to class on time. The class went ok but I spent too much time talking, which is what happens when I don’t put a lot of effort ahead of time into making sure I don’t spend too much time talking.

My first-day-of-class activity was ok but I think I needed another activity for the students, something more statistical, to better set the tone of the course.

I think I should’ve given them a 10-minute work-in-pairs activity where I’d first give them some real-world problem and then ask them, in pairs, to design a study to address it. The problem could be anything: it could be to assess Ebola risks or answer questions about political ideology and personality, or even to design a plan for assessing the effectiveness of this course that they’re taking. Just something that would get them communicating, but also thinking about statistics in some detail. Not just talking generally about the cool problems they’re working on or are interested in, but some attempt to get into details.

We could do this next class, of course, but I already have things planned. So maybe this will have to wait until the next time I teach the course.

1 thought on “First day of class update

  1. Evidence for Ebola vaccine trials, the need for trails, how to design and implement them might be fascinating.

    An interesting aspect about 20 years ago was that those who would be designing any randomised Ebola trail would have had many close (infection control) colleagues as potential subjects in any such trail. That apparently derailed some past opportunities (not sure if it was a vaccine or potential treatment.)

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