Instructor: Prof. Blake Mellor

MHC 165

6-8614

bmellor@fau.edu

URL: http://www.fau.edu/~bmellor

Office Hours: M 2-4, TTh 2-4, MHC 165

or by appointment

Class Meeting: TTh 12:30-1:50, MAC 204

Text: The Basic Practice of Statistics, Moore, 2^nd edition (2000) (Required)

Required: TI-83+ Graphing Calculator

Objective: This class is an introduction to statistics. You will learn how to represent and analyze data, and how to draw conclusions from the data. A major goal of this class will be to teach you to become critical and informed readers of real data and statistics. You will be doing projects that involves looking, at in some cases collecting, real data. You will also be asked to read articles from newspapers or magazines and critique their use of statistics. We will be placing much more emphasis on how to use the tools of statistics than on proving why they work (which generally requires more advanced mathematics).

Honor Code: Students agree to adhere to the honor code, the text of which is at http://www.fau.edu/divdept/honcol/students/honorcode.html

Grading: Homework Projects 400 pts

Lectures: We will be doing a variety of activities in class. I will spend some time in class lecturing, however, I will not be covering everything in the text in class, so it is very important that you read the book (see below). We will also spend time in class working individually and in groups on problems which I provide, or from the text. So it is important that you bring your book to each class.

Reading: You are expected to read the section to be discussed in class before class. While I will cover what I consider to be the "high points", I will often not predict exactly which details you might find confusing, so it is important that you read the text and come to class prepared to ask questions.

Homework and Projects: Your weekly homework will consist of two parts.

1. There will be problems assigned from the exercises at the end of each section we cover in the text. These problems will not be turned in. Many of the answers are in the back of the book. You are expected to do as many of these problems as necessary, before the next class, to ensure that you have a firm grasp of the material from that section. Occasionally, you may need to do additional problems on topics you find particularly tricky. Some of these problems will appear, verbatim, on the midterms and the final.
2. Each week, you will also be given an assignment which will be due by class on Tuesday. These will be more complicated projects which involve applying the material covered to date. While these will be graded primarily on their mathematical correctness, the presentation (clarity, spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.) will count. Late homework will be accepted until class on Thursday, losing 20% each day. After the beginning of Thursday's class, late homework will not be accepted.

Collaboration: You are encouraged to collaborate on homeworks and projects. This means that you may work together to understand and solve the problems, with each member of the group checking and contributing to the work of the others. However, each member of a group must write up their solutions on their own, and must list their collaborators at the beginning of their solution. Failure to do this will be considered plagiarism, which is a gross violation of the honor code and will be dealt with accordingly.

Exams: There will be 2 midterm exams, tentatively scheduled for September 27 and November 8. The final will be a 2 1/2 hour exam on Thursday, December 13, 10:30-1:00.