Wendiann Sethi, Instructor and Faculty Partner, collaborated with the WebAssign team in developing new Precalculus/Calculus review material for Advanced Statistics. The new material will help students understand key topics and address readiness gaps for statistics students.
Continue reading to learn about Wendiann’s experience during this partnership and how these problems will benefit students.
Q: Why is review important for advanced statistics?
A: I have found that many times while teaching Statistics for Science to students, they have forgotten the Algebraic or Calculus skills required to solve the problems. I have to admit that I would prefer to focus my class time on the statistical material than reviewing material that they should already know. Cengage asked me to help them solve a problem.
Q: How did you identify key topics for review?
A: We reviewed all of the problems in Devore, Probability and Statistics for Engineering and the Sciences, 9th edition and Wackerly/Mendenhall/Scheaffer, Mathematical Statistics with Applications, 7th edition looking for the key Algebraic and Calculus topics that students would need to solve the problems that they don’t always remember. Some of the topics covered were summation notation and solving absolute value inequalities. We also discussed integrating and diffusing natural exponential functions.
Q: How will the results of this project benefit future WebAssign instructors & students?
A: Instructors can use WebAssign to assign homework. They will be able select the review topic exercises and the problems for assignments via the Question Browser. Each chapter will have a section called “ChapterX: Precalculus and Calculus Review” in the Question Browser. If Precalculus and Calculus are not covered, this will be reflected in their names.
These exercises provide examples, explanations, videos, and videos that will help students refresh their skills while they work on homework. Students will be able to review any skills that they have forgotten with this solution. This will allow us to spend more time in class on the new material.
It’s a win-win situation, overall. These exercises will be incorporated into my homework assignments for my WebAssign class in the spring semester, which I am very excited about.
About the Author
Wendiann Sethi, a Senior Faculty Associate at Seton Hall University, is the Director of Developmental Mathematics. Visit her Faculty Partner profile to learn more about Wendiann.
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