statistics

Case Study of Faith-Academic Discipline Integration: Statistical Inference

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(Hello world! I know it has been quite some time since I posted anything new here. This semester of Ph.D. coursework has kept me otherwise engaged, and that on top of my full-time teaching responsibilities. There are a number of projects that should come to completion this summer which will give me a whole new wave of exciting posts to share. In the meantime I was grateful to receive an email from guest contributor Andrew Hartley sharing the slides and his notes from a presentation he gave at Dordt College on the integration of Christian faith and statistics. Click on the image below to view the presentation or click here. Enjoy.)

by Andrew Hartley

Andrew Hartley is the author of Christian and Humanist Foundations for Statistical Inference; Religious Control of Statistical Paradigms. For more information on this work, please visit the Resource Book page. Guest author Steve Bishop posted an interview with Andrew as part of his series on Christian Mathematicians.

Hartley Lecture

Religion in America’s States and Counties in 6 Maps

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Interesting statistics on religion in America from  the “2010 U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study,” an every-decade research effort sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Article and images from the Washington Post.

map

Uri Treisman’s “Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize” (NCTM 2013)

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The following speech was given by Uri Treisman, professor of mathematics and director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. This was the Iris M. Carl Equity Address given on April 19, 2013 at the NCTM Annual Conference in Denver.  Here is the summary from Treisman:

There are two factors that shape inequality in this country and educational achievement inequality. The big one is poverty. But a really big one is opportunity to learn. As citizens, we need to work on poverty and income inequality or our democracy is threatened. As mathematics educators … we need to work on opportunity to learn. It cannot be that the accident of where a child lives or the particulars of their birth determine their mathematics education.

This was an excellent message on where precisely the educational system in this country is working, and where it is failing. Treisman gives a detailed address of what problems education can (and should) be addressing and what issues need to be handled by our society at large. It is definitely worth 50 minutes of your time to hear. Keith Devlin even goes so far as to call it our (math educators) “I Have a Dream” speech.

Below is the version of the speech compiled by Dan Meyer. The inclusion of the slides from the talk gives it even greater depth because there is some powerful data that Treisman presents.

(Word of warning, Treisman is giving a very honest speech so there is a little language that some readers of this site may find offensive. While I do not condone the exact wording used, I fully support the message being communicated.)

Uri Treisman’s “Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize” – NCTM 2013 from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.