[R-sig-teaching] request for computing tasks you use (or avoid) in intro stats

[Nicholas Horton]

Colleagues,

For the last year, I've been working with Randy Pruim and Danny Kaplan on the "mosaic" package for R and RStudio to provide a more concise and expressive way for introductory students to undertake statistical computing in a less painful manner.  You'll have to judge for yourself, of course, whether the result will work for you and your students.  

As the project moves into its final stages, we're looking for examples --- from you! --- of computing tasks in your introductory statistics course that you have your students carry out, or things you want your students to do but don't because they are hard to express in the computer system you use (whether that be R or something else).  Specific examples of things that you as an instructor or your students found difficult in R are particularly welcomed.

I'll summarize the findings (and possible solutions) if this elicits responses.

Thanks in advance,

Nick

Nicholas Horton 
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Smith College
Clark Science Center, Northampton, MA 01063-0001
http://www.math.smith.edu/~nhorton