Comments | tokraed: Hitting the Statistics Wall

tokraed

Hitting the Statistics Wall

Oct 05, 2009 16:50

As I wait for the next 10 or 15 minutes to pass before heading into Stats class, I find myself trying to scrape off all the charred edges of my brain, in the vain hope that there's enough left to make sense of today's class ( Read more... )

ouch! my brain!!, statistics, master's comps

Comments 7

wineroom October 5 2009, 21:47:18 UTC

There should be a TA for the course who will at least try to be helpful. You could always go over the quiz with him/her or the prof? If you have Eckard (or is it Ecklund?) he's extremely helpful.

tokraed October 6 2009, 00:36:53 UTC

I'm actually road-testing a new prof in the College of Ed. He's here to help their Distance Learning branch, and is pretty cool ..... but then he would be having been a prof up at Bowling Green OH, with a son getting his PhD at Ohio State. XD

He went over the quiz in class today, which was a great help because I found out that 3 of my mistakes were from entering the wrong numbers in the stats program, and 2 other questions were badly worded and threw the others, too. Of course, that doesn't account for the other 4 questions I completely and utterly screwed up on, but I do feel slightly better.

We already know the mid-term is all open book, open notes, one week to complete. But that won't keep me from putting in the wrong data again. XD

Score one for Vygotsky! wineroom October 6 2009, 03:20:35 UTC

I think what helped me the very most was having homework/study groups. We'd do the homework on our own and meet later to check it. When I got something wrong, there was at least one other student who could explain it to me. Ditto with studying for tests.

Zone of Proximal Development in action! Nom!

reallove October 5 2009, 23:54:29 UTC

I understand your concern. You should be concerned. That said, don't let it move on into worry; all it will do is begin building a wall. Perhaps there's a different method of study that could help? Someone to turn to as *wineroom* has suggested?

tokraed October 6 2009, 00:43:32 UTC

My prof has incorporated a variety of learning methods into his course. I'm watching videos on how to run both stats programs, watching videos that explain the chapters we're working on, reading the book, doing the problems, taking a book quiz (absolutely No Fail), taking a quiz on the stats that we crunch with the stats programs, asking questions in class and having access via email.

Sadly, it's still all math. If only there were some way to do Statistics without all those numbers, I'm sure the Arts would never suffer from lack of funding.

But the thing that really kills me is the fact that M took Probability, not Statistics. He can't help explain things to me, only shout "Marco" when I get lost in the weeds. XD

Looks like some serious homework being done over this coming weekend.

reallove October 10 2009, 01:33:01 UTC

I feel for ya. My head spins in irregular decagons just thinking about it! Hope your sinuses are cooperating by now.

tokraed October 10 2009, 05:14:06 UTC

LOL! So much for the diligent studying of Statistics this weekend.

I've been sleeping most of the last two days, wrecking whatever "normal" sleep schedule I've managed to achieve since school started. I'm thinking that things should be doing better on Saturday. I might even sit down and do a little Stats homework then, too.