A.3 Course structure

I’m going to assume that you taken classes before. You may even have taken classes that used proficiency grading. But every semester and every course is different (especially these days!). So I want to go over the basic structure, how the course works, just so we’re all on the same page.

I’ve taught courses with a similar structure before, and spoiler alert, here are the two things those students would most want to tell you right now:

1. Start off right. There’s a lot of flexibility here and it’s really easy to let your other commitments take priority, but you will not be happy you did that around Week 8. To a large extent, you get to make your own rules for how you do this course – but that means you have to make your own rules in this course.

2. Ask when you’re not sure – both about statistical material, and about the course itself. This may be a completely new course structure for you, so it makes sense if you have questions about it! What I’ve heard from so many students is “this course was super different, but I really liked it once I got the hang of it.” So, I want to help you get the hang of it, as soon as possible! You can post questions to a Moodle conversation forum (which is great because probably 5 other people have the same question), or contact me directly if your question is private.

A.3.1 The Day-to-Day

I like to think of your experience with each topic as having four stages:

• A first exposure to the ideas. The goal here is not to understand the topic completely, but to get a sense of the main concepts, and which parts of it seem more or less confusing to you personally. For this stage, you’ll have readings before class, and pre-class questions for each class – see below.
• Actually getting to grips with the ideas. This is what class time is for. We’ll have a combination of lecture, discussion, and labs/activities, and you’ll write wrap-up comments at the end of each session you attend, describing your main takeaway from the day.
• A second (or more) round of practice. For this you’ll have access to practice problems, which don’t affect your course grade but give you a chance to build your skills.
• Assessing your understanding. For concept-type learning goals, this takes the form of Assessments corresponding to the different modules; for skill-type goals, this takes the form of projects. Yes, this is where your grade (mostly) comes from, but assessment in general is also there for you – it lets you see where you stand, and where you might want to put in additional work.

Of course, you should also come to class! Our in-person class time will be used in two main ways:

• Discussion of the newest material. This may involve something resembling lecture from me, but you’ll always be part of it – I’ll ask and answer questions throughout. Other times, you’ll take more of a leading role in the discussion.
  • The specific content of the discussion is informed by what I see on the pre-class responses, so don’t forget to complete those!
• In-class activities, or labs. You’ll typically work on these in small groups.
  • Many, though not all, of these will involve coding, so it’s a good idea to bring a laptop to class each day. If you have issues around this, just let me know!

A.3.2 What You’ll Do

The first step in a new topic or module is to do the corresponding pre-class prep assignment, including any readings. Remember, your goal here is not complete ready-for-assessment understanding, it’s getting a sense of the big picture – what the topic is about, the basic vocab involved, and where you think the questions or tricky points are going to be.

Before each class meeting, you’ll submit pre-class questions about the current topic; you can also include some questions about previous topics if you like. If you don’t have any questions, you submit “Screech Questions”: questions you can imagine someone else (like my Washington Nationals plushie, Screech) might have about the topic. These are due the night before the session. I’ll review the questions from everyone in the group, and use them to create an agenda for the day. (Note: in the agenda, I’ll prioritize popular/common questions and those that I consider to touch on really important points. We won’t always have time to address every question; at that point, it’s time to head to office hours or the forum discussions – see below.)

A central part of this course is the practice problems. Unlike some other classes where you may do a week’s material and then go do a problem set, this course often integrates the practice problems as we go along. You might find yourself looking at a practice problem for material we haven’t even discussed in class yet – not to solve it, but to give yourself that first exposure to the topic and help you get a sense of what we’ll be talking about. Then you might return to that same problem after class discussion, to complete a full solution.

I encourage you to work with other people on PPs; but always make sure that you are developing your own understanding (see “Should I join a study group?”). If you want additional practice, let me know and I’ll suggest some extra problems; you can’t submit the extras formally, but you can always chat about them on the forum discussions or at office hours.

After each module, there’s an Assessment of the corresponding concept learning goals. These are how you (and I) assess your grasp of each subject – see this section for more details on assessment.

Practice problems and pre-class questions aren’t graded for correctness, just checked for completion and effort. I predict that you will still spend a good chunk of time on them, because (1) you earn engagement for doing so, and (2) that’s the way most humans actually learn. You can skip straight to attempting Assessments, but this is probably not a great idea; you only get so many attempts at Assessments over the course of the semester, so you don’t want to burn them unnecessarily (see the fine print).

Throughout this process, you’ll be in communication with me, the TAs, and your classmates. Our main tool for this is the discussion boards/forums on Moodle. This is the place to ask questions, see if other people also have your questions, answer or expand on questions from your classmates, share stats stories, organize study sessions, and generally interact with our class community.

Not-every-week stuff: This course includes four projects where you demonstrate your proficiency with the skill-type learning goals. You’ll have a project “active” pretty much all the time, and you’ll be asked to have formal check-ins with me while you’re working on the larger projects, to make sure everything is on track.