[R-sig-teaching] R for introductory epidemiology for MPH students--base or with a package or two?

[Christopher W. Ryan]

I'll be teaching intro epidemiology in a new MPH program, starting this
fall. Weekly sessions, each 3 hours long. Expecting 12-20 students. I
plan to try to make it fairly interactive, with a "computer lab" as part
of almost every class session. Using R. I'll do an initial "needs
assessment" prior to or on first day of class; for now I assume none of
the students are at all familiar with R. My first thought was to limit
my efforts to base R, rather than try to use any installable packages.
Any opinions about that? I specifically wonder whether Hadley Wickham's
tidyverse way of doing things is become so commonplace (and rightly so!)
that I should introduce this. It certainly makes data wrangling much
easier, and that is a lot of what epidemiologists do, since we are so
often given existing data that were not recorded with future analyses in
mind.

Thoughts on any of the above?  Thanks.

--Chris Ryan, MD, MS
Binghamton University,
SUNY Upstate Medical University,
and
Broome County Health Department, NY, US