[R-sig-teaching] R in intro stats

[Albyn Jones]

 I have been using R (and Splus before that, and old S before that) in
my intro course for a long time.  Most of the students in the course
have never used a command line interface before.  They come from many
disciplines (Bio, Econ, Soc, Poli Sci, History, etc...). 

I see advantages and disadvantages: you certainly have to spend more
time on learning the software.  The simple fact that spelling and
capitalization (X vs x) cause trouble takes some time.  The payoff I
see is substantial; the flexibility of the graphics facilities are a
revelation for students who have used other statistical software.
Some students get interested in R as a language.  The ease of doing
simulations has great value.  The price is right: many students
install R on their own personal machines, and some even continue to
use it after the course ends.

I use R for in-class demos, as well as having a 1 hour lab session every 
week.  I have written online lab notes for each lab meeting, though I am
constantly rethinking and revising them.  

albyn 

On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 08:24:12AM -0500, Bob Dobrow wrote:
> I'm glad to see this sig list up and running.
> 
> I'm planning to use R for my *intro* stats class in the Winter. This is 
> an experiment,
> as our intro stats classes all use SPSS. So I'm using R for this one 
> section (out of about 8 sections
> a year).  I want to see (1) how easy/hard it is for
> students to work in a command line environment and (2) whether there is some
> pedagogical advantage to working with command lines rather than just 
> point-and-click.
> 
> We've taken our GUI-based SPSS lab manual and rewritten it for R. If 
> anyone would like to see it I can make it available. I'll probably need 
> to supplement it with some very basic intro tutorials or
> worksheets giving basic introduction. I do not intend to have these 
> students (mostly poli sci,
> econ and bio) writing scripts. But I do intend to use R lots in-class 
> simulations and
> presentations. If anyone has used R in the intro class I'd be interested 
> in hearing your experiences.
> 
> Bob Dobrow
> Carleton College
> 
> 

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