Course Variations on a Course Variations on a ThemeTheme: Strengthening the : Strengthening the

Quantitative Reasoning of First-Quantitative Reasoning of First-Year StudentsYear Students

Mija Van Der WegeMija Van Der WegeCarleton CollegeCarleton College

The Psychology of NumbersThe Psychology of Numbers: : A Fair and Balanced Look at A Fair and Balanced Look at

Statistical ReportingStatistical Reporting

The Plan

•Course Context

•Course Objectives

•Course Topics

•Course Assignments

•Lessons Learned

Course Context

•First-year, first-term seminar

•Discussion oriented

•Writing rich

•Focused on introducing students to college-level thinking and skills

Course Objectives•Learn about scientific hypothesis testing,

conditional probability, a sense of orders of magnitude, and experimental design

•Learn about psychological representations and processing of numbers

•Practice effective use of numbers in rhetorical argument

•Develop a habit of mind of critiquing numerical evidence

Course Topics•Autism Epidemic Case Study

•Methods and Statistics

•Writing with Numbers

•Cognitive Representations of Number

•Framing and Response Biases

•Ethics

Course Assignments

•Numbers in the News

•Critically Reading Journalistic Reports of Research

•Comparing Journalistic Reports to Primary Sources of Research

•Writing about Primary Sources of Research

•Numbers in the News Magazine

Lessons Learned•Approaches to numbers (Joel Best)

•The Naive

•The Cynical

•The Critical

•Communication

•Appreciation for perspective and bias in writers

•Appreciation for perspective and bias in readers

•Creating a habit of mind

Questions?Questions?http://serc.carleton.edu/nnn/quantitative_writing/examples/http://serc.carleton.edu/nnn/quantitative_writing/examples/

28281.html28281.html