A set of lessons designed by me in Microsoft Excel to demonstrate basic concepts in statistics.
An Introduction to Microsoft Excel and a first-day activity: Write your name with Greek Charachters
This simple activity contains many lessons in a fun, low-stakes, first-day activity. This activity allows students to introduce themselves while teaching students information that will be useful throughout this class and beyond.
Students to practice some basic skills in Microsoft Excel: cell referencing, autofill, and functions in a simplified, non-numeric setting.
Greek characters appear often in everyday life, not only in writing the Greek alphabet but also in many university settings, including Greek life. Often these characters are used as symbols in mathematics, statistics, and economics and can be frightening and unfamiliar if students are not familiar with them. This activity demystifies and explains that Greek characters are just another set of letters that can be used, for example, to write your name.
This activity can also be used to introduce students to the flow of lessons for the rest of the semester. In my classes I usually give a short lecture, followed by an activity, and then a period where the class regroups and discusses the activity. Students submit their work, as they will for the rest of the semester.
Roulette Wheel in Microsoft Excel
A fun little activity to introduce the concept of a discrete random variable and probability. Students can calculate the theoretical probability of winning and watch as convergence occurs. Have students explain what is meant by the concept of “the house always wins”. This activity can also be scaled up to demonstrate the Central Limit Theorem for a later lesson with thousands of roulette wheels running simultaneously.
Binomial Distributions in the Royal Game of Ur
A simple and surprisingly fun board game that was widely popular across the ancient Middle East. Four pyramidal dice are thrown each with four vertices, two with dots, and two without, Throw all four dice and count up the dots to decide your number of moves. Each dice functions as an independent Bernoulli trial and the distribution of their outcomes is a binomial distribution. Recognizing this distribution of outcomes is crucial for good strategy. While students learn to count on rolling a 2 every 3/8 throws, rolling a very helpful 4 or a devastating 0 happens only 1/16 throws.
This fun activity helps to simplify and give concrete examples of a topic that students often struggle with. Combining a physical game board which I made myself with this Excel activity allows two students to demonstrate on the physical game board and all students to play themselves.
