Teaching statistics has increasingly been regarded as a complex mission to accomplish as it consists of many different mathematical components with many variables. Despite extensive research work in developing education in statistics, this discipline still requires significant improvement in how it is taught. Most students at university have a lack of interest in undertaking statistics courses due different factors -  some of them are related to teaching techniques and others are related to method of assessment. In these slides, Saad Odeh presents an effective teaching technique in statistics developed by SIBT teachers. Rather than enabling the cohort by providing them with extra help to progress in statistics, the idea was to improve their confidence when they do the major assessment, 'the final exam'.

1. Confidence is key: a successful approach to teaching statistics
Presented
by
Saad Odeh and Virginia Mandelburger
(other teaching team members: Fazeel Jaleel, and Krishna Ramanathan)
Sydney Institute of Business and Technology

2. In this webinar we will present:
- Our experience in developing the delivery of one of the major units in SIBT that
was facing instability in student performance,
- Different techniques used during the two years of the intervention plan,
- Major outcomes achieved.

3. Key problem in teaching statistics
Despite the extensive research work on developing the statistics education, this
discipline still require significant improvement in its teaching techniques.
There has been strong evidence in the literature that students at university
have lack of interest in learning statistics courses.
This lack of interest has significant impact on student’s engagement and
interaction in the classroom, and in most cases may ended in low attendance
and failing the unit.

4. The classical approach in teaching this unit has many draw backs and can be summarised
in the following 4 major problems (Peiris, S, & Beh, E., 2006, and Tishkovskaya, S., &
Lancaster, G., 2012).
1. Deficiencies in principles of statistics and mathematical background of students.
2. Traditional assessment techniques do not provide valid and reliable measurements on important
student outcomes.
3. Statistics are often taught with no link to the related undergraduate degree or real life
experience.
4. Many text book do not satisfy student’s self-learning needs.
Why there is no interest ?

5. The approach used to change to the curriculum and delivery techniques in SIBT
1- Study the cohort of students skill in statistics in SIBT

6. 2- Diagnose the deficiency of students in statistics
Readiness test for statistics was introduced (20 question),
assumed knowledge from HS in general mathematics
such as:
Rounding figure in decimal, converting fraction to percentage,
Using calculator to find percentage of a number,
Read values from bar graph or histogram, and
Find statistical values from table.
In session 3 2018 the test showed that about 38%
of the cohort were not ready to study statistics.

7. 3- Statistic support class
Students who fails the test are required to attend free statistics support
class 2 hours/week concurrent with statistics unit.
The support is based on an online tool
Revision workshops before midterm and final
exam is conducted

8. 4- Class engagement,
A weekly in class online quiz was introduced using the mobile phones.
(Develop better study habit by using mobile phones effectively)
The test which consists of 10 questions was designed by using Socrative
application and focus on major statistical principles that represent a gate
way to the new coming topics.

9. Why enabling weak students did not help much to improve the overall performance?
The development on the unit which was done over two years represents in general a
practice to enable the weak students.
However, this action by itself did not help to give the confidence to student
The traditional policy in statistics is that to pass the unit students must pass the final
exam.
Some students fail to sit the final exam due lack of time management and the difficulty
of handling the revision of complete syllabus.

10. Widening participation is a key to success
Rather than enabling the the cohort by providing them with extra help to progress
in statistics the idea come to improve their confidence when they do the major
assessment “midterm or final exam”.
Such kind of teaching and learning principle called “widening participation” states
that students already have abilities… they do not need to be enabled. Teachers
are facilitators in the learning process, and they need to pass on the responsibility
to their students (Green, J, 2018).

11. Break up the statistics curriculum
The same statistics syllabus was divided into three modules each module covered
in 4 weeks period.
At the end of each module, students were asked to sit for the test - first trial.
The second trial for these modules test was offered again at the end of the
session.

12. In the three module tests students are allowed to bring one page information sheet
(crib sheet) where they can summarise some rules and principles in statistics.
Having this kind of sheet will enable the students to remember some formulas and
principles written and summarised by themselves.
Pass on the responsibility to students

13. Unified teaching technique for statistics

14. Some outcomes of the new delivery
- Break up the statistics curriculum into modules gives students more confidence when they tackle
the module test because they can always have another chance to prove their competence in the
module if they fail the test in the first trial.
- Those students who already passed one of the module test in the first trial will have more time for
revision and during the test at the end of the session (second trial) because they will focus only on
the modules they failed.
- Allowing student to bring information sheet for the exam enabled the students to remember
some formulas and principles written and summarised by themselves.

15. Thank you