Chapter 18: Surprised? Testing Hypotheses About Proportions, Continued (Days 159-160)

Today in Ethnostats, we proceed with the next three pages in Chapter 18. These pages discuss alternative decision rules, including alpha levels, critical values, and P-values. I'm a bit surprised here that although P-values, the statistical fallacy known as P-hacking isn't. (P-hacking was mentioned in a Stats class I subbed for just before the pandemic.)

During the Warm-Up, I featured the next of the three mathematicians for Asian Heritage Month -- Diana Ma, a data scientist for the LA Lakers. She is a statistician, so her work is very relevant to my class. I note that several statisticians were previously mentioned during the Warm-Ups back during Hispanic Heritage Month as well.

With today's lesson, this marks the last time that I will lecture in this Ethnostats class. We move away from the chapters in the text and towards the end-of-year project (which will be a video). Again, actually it's the third unit project that is meant to be given after the third (out of four) unit of the course. But we won't finish Unit 4, nor will we do the Unit 4 project, so the Unit 3 project is the end-of-year project.

Meanwhile, as I wrote in my last post, today is the AP Calculus exam. It's an all-classes Monday, but the exam runs from 8 AM to noon, past the end of third period at 11:10. And so I don't see any of my Calculus students at all today. We'll soon be making the transition to the post-AP project that will, in many ways, be similar to the Ethnostats project.

It's also means that it's time for some tough decisions. Up until now, I've been making sure that the points are equal in all classes so that the percentages will work out. But now the classes will be moving in different directions. In particular, the Calculus project is supposed to replace the final (since a final after the AP is undesirable), but Ethnostats will have a final exam after the project.

Well, first of all, the Warm-Up sheets are to add up to 100 points. This is Week 17 -- the first 16 sheets were worth six points each, or 96 points total. Thus this week's sheet will be worth four points, and then that will be the last Warm-Ups of the year. The missing 20 homework points for Calculus will be a companion assignment for their project. But since the points are equal up to now, I still need 20 more points in Ethnostats. Of these, 15 points will be for this week, then there will be no HW next week. The last five points will be review for the final. The project itself will count as a 100-point test in Calculus. For Ethnostats, it will replace a 75-point quiz, so that the final will be the last 100-point test.

Today is Fourday on the Eleven Calendar.

Resolution #4: We remember how to use a calculator like riding a bike.

In Ethnostats, we use the 1-PropZTest and 1-PropZInt tests (under STAT TESTS) on the TI. In Trig, we move on to Section 4.5, which combines (adds) trig functions on both graph paper and the TI. And of course, my Calculus students hopefully completed the calculator sections of the AP exam.

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