Instructor: Sheila O'Leary Weaver sweaver@uvm.edu
Office: 307 Mansfield House
Office Phone: 656-2192
Office Hours: Monday, 9 to 10:30am Tuesday, 1 to 2pm Wednesday, 2 to 3pm and by appointment
Teaching Assistant for our sections: Kiran McCormick kmaccorm@uvm.edu
Office: B6 Mansfield House
Office Phone: 656-3349
Office Hours: See list of all Stat141 TAs' office hours. You can see any of them for help, but Kiran is our class TA.
Section B -- 92349 -- Mon/Wed/Fri --
10:40 to 11:30am -- 118 Rowell
Section C -- 92350 --
Mon/Wed/Fri --
11:45 to 12:35pm --
118 Rowell
Stat141 is "Basic Statistical Methods."
The course catalog says: "Foundational course for statistical methodologies. Exploratory data analysis, probability distributions, estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing & regression." The main goal of this course is for you to be statistically literate. The goal is not to memorize a lot of formulas and procedures, but to understand the thinking that goes into using data to understand the world, so that you can use statistics successfully in your field of study and in your daily life. We will definitely do some computation, but will focus also on understanding the problem and making the proper interpretation.
Course
Materials:
Graphing calculator,
and do bring it to class.... TI84 Plus is ideal, but an 83 is ok,
too. You
must
bring
your calculator to exams and the final. (Cell-phone calculators
aren't allowed, and they don't have the functions you need anyway)
We will be using the statistical computer package JMP. You're required to use it for the Project (Notes on using JMP for your project), and it is recommended that you use it for homework sometimes. It is available in the computing facilities in Waterman (on all the PCs, and on the PC side of the dual boot Macs in 113Q), Votey (rooms 205, 246, 206, and soon 229), 102 Perkins, and probably some other places as well). You do not have to buy it. It is available to all UVM students for free so you can put it on your own computer if you like. Either go here and choose your platform (PC, Mac, Linux), then choose JMP8.0; or go right here for PCs or Macs. At Waterman and Bailey-Howe, you just need your regular student account, while all computers in Votey are on the CEMS (College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences) system. To use computers in Votey, you'll need a different account--a CEMS account. I'll give you one in class, if you like, and it will be good all semester.
There are scheduled orientations in a computer lab to introduce you to JMP.
Required text:
Intro Stats, De Veaux, Velleman, Bock, 3rd edition, Pearson/Addison Wesley, 2009.
(There is one copy of this text on reserve at the Bailey Howe Library Reserve Desk)
You will also need an access code to use Course Compass, our Homework Portal. This comes with the bookstore text package, or can be purchased separately. Here are instructions on registering with Course Compass for Section B (10:40am) and Section C (11:45pm)
Grading:
Your course grade will
be
determined by:
Homework
25% of grade (Course Compass online homework assignments,
and some in-class assignments)
Project:
Section B
Section C
15% of grade
Midterms
45% of grade -- three midterms, each worth
15%
Final Exam 15% of grade
I'll compute an overall percentage based on this formula, and use this Grade Distribution.
Some Useful Links
Advice for Stat141 students (from last semester's stat141 students....)
Some other important things:
ACCESS:
Any students needing
accommodations through the ACCESS program should let me know (bring in a letter from ACCESS) as soon as
possible. We can talk about how to proceed.... If you plan to take tests
at the Exam proctoring center, please schedule them now -- they get booked
early!
Cell Phones: Please turn off cell
phones during class. (Exceptions include, but are not limited to,
you or your spouse being 8 or more months pregnant. See me if you
have a good reason to leave your cell phone on.) If your cell
phone rings
during class, you will be responsible for bringing cookies or some such treat to class for all to enjoy.
Attendance: Your regular attendance is expected, of course. Although there is no participation grade per se, your regular attendance and class participation will certainly be considered if your grade is on the borderline at the end of the semester…..
Academic Honesty: Violations of Academic Honesty, such as copying, plagiarizing, and faking data will not be tolerated. The rules are clear, and the consequences stiff (read here about Academic Integrity programs).