Welcome to My STAT 201 Class!

I've been teaching stat 201 from Fall 2014 to Fall 2016, 5 semesters in a row. So I know what I am doing. The slides and syllabus are largely based on spring and fall 2015.

Syllabus

You will learn lots of techniques to handle data, even without knowing calculus. We start with descriptive statistics: the way to summarize and visualize data. We then move on to exploring the association between two variables: regression analysis and contingency table. The amazing part of regression is that you can predict the future based on data in your hand.

Our course grows a bit more theoretical when it comes probability. This is necessary, however, to lay a foundation in doing statistical inference. By statistical inference, I will be talking about confidence interval and hypothesis testing. In other words, to make your guess more sensible. That’s pretty much everything. For detail, see the syllabus, and come my class.

Slides

The slides are keynotes and you can only open them on Apple devices. They are, primarily, based on Agresti’s textbook, Art and Science of Learning from Data. The material might be organized in a slightly different way than the textbook. For instance, Chapter 4 is covered in conjunction with Chapter 1. And I feel like talking a little bit about multiple regression (in Chapter 13) while covering Chapter 3, where simple linear regression is covered.

Lecture 1 Lecture 2 Lecture 3 Lecture 4 Lecture 5 Lecture 6 Lecture 7 Lecture 8
Lecture 9 Lecture 10 Lecture 11 Lecture 12 Lecture 13 Lecture 14 Lecture 15 Lecture 16
Lecture 17 Lecture 18 Lecture 19 Lecture 20 Lecture 21 Lecture 22 Lecture 23 Lecture 24
Lecture 25 Lecture 26 Lecture 27 Lecture 28

Exams

In preparing the exam, I strongly suggest you to follow this work flow: first read the slides and make sure you understand each single page, if not, refer to textbook or talk to me. After that, do the practice exam, which will give you some idea of the format and length of a real exam, because these exams themselves, are previous exams. Lastly, if you still have time, problem sets after each chapter in the textbook is another good resource.

Exam I, Fall 2014 Exam II, Fall 2014 Exam III, Fall 2014 Final Exam, Fall 2014
Exam I, Spring 2015 Exam II, Spring 2015 Exam III, Spring 2015 Final Exam, Spring 2015

FAQ

In this part, I will address a couple of questions that are frequently raised by students. Probably you will find it helpful.

Q: Take attendance?
A: Hell no. You are are responsible for your own life. And I do not give a damn if you attend or not.

Q: What calculator should I use for this course?
A: Any calculator will do except your smartphone. To be specific, it should be able to take square root and do factorials. In our course, advanced computation is implemented by StatCrunch, not calculators.

Q: Will homework be dropped?
A: No. We drop lowest lab scores and exams scores, not homework.

Q: Will there be multiple choices in exams?
A: No. In an exam, multiple choices make cheating easier, and thus make proctoring harder. And we are understaffed. So no multiple choices.

Q: A lot of people talking about EWA, what is that ?
A: Different 201 classes have different policies on that. I prefer do it late in the semester (around thanksgiving in fall semester), since you are more informed, statistically. In my class, I will have a lecture fully devoted to EWA, and walk you through that assignment.

Q: Can I exempt final?
A: No. You are allowed to do that in STAT 110, but not in this class.

Q: Make up exams?
A: No.

Feedback

I want to be a better teacher, or a better speaker in a more generic sense. That's why your opinion is valuable to me. You can either email me, or leave a comment in RateMyProfessor.com. I appreciate that.