Assignment 3

Discussion

Divide up into groups and think about information you would like to find out about students in the class. Your objective is to generate 5 good questions that contain at least one question asking for a yes/no answer, one asking for qualitative information (word or phrase) and one asking for numerical information. Each group should write the 5 questions on a card provided.

We will select "the best" of these questions and add a few of our own to end up with a questionnaire of about 25 questions. On Tuesday we will ask you to answer this questionnaire. We will then provide you with the data to explore using Data Desk.

Journals

The journals are to be handed in, for the first time, Thursday October 6. Several students have asked about what should be in the journals. Here is what we said about this in the course description:

Each participant should keep a journal for the course. This journal will include:

• Specific assignments that you have been asked to do for your journal. These will include questions they you are asked to think and write about, the results of computer investigations, etc.
• General comments about the class; things you don't understand; things you finally do understand. Some people find it helpful to write short summaries of what went on in class, but this is not required.
• Anything interesting and imaginative.

A good journal should answer all the questions asked, with evidence that some time has been spent thinking about the questions before answering them. In addition, there should be evidence of original thought: evidence that you have spent some time thinking about things that you weren't specifically asked about. This might take the form of: finding and commenting on news articles about topics relevant to the course; asking us challenging questions; making connections between what went on in class and experiences in your own life; going to a casino and winning a lot of money.

In writing in your journal, exposition is important. If you are presenting the answer to a question, explain what the question is. If you are giving an argument, explain what the point is before you launch into it. What you should aim for is something that could communicate to a friend or a colleague a coherent idea of what you have been thinking and doing in the course.

Homework assignment for Tuesday October 4

Read Chapters 3 and 4 of FPPA. Do the following review exercises: for Chapter 3, Page 47: 1, 9, 10 and for Chapter 4, Page 70: 1, 2, 4

Journal Assignment

• Read the current issue of chance news. Find an article that interests you and then read the full text of the article. Comment on the article in your journal.
• You are a juror in the O.J. Simpson case and the prosecutor reports that Simpson's DNA matches very closely the DNA found in the blood at the scene of the crime. She says that the lab reports that there is 1 chance in a billion that a randomly selected person's DNA would have a match as close as that of Simpson. How would you use this information in assessing Simpson's guilt?