Data Analysis and Modeling: Home

TIMELINE
Spring 2000		Year '03 - '04
Fall 2000	Year '04 - '05
Spring 2001	Fall 2005
Fall 2001	Spring 2006
Spring 2002	Present
Year '02 - '03	Future

SPRING 2000In spring of 2000, the (now) School of Business at St. John Fisher College approached us, and requested that we develop a new course for their business/management students. Up to this point, these students took one 3-credit mathematics course designed to cover finite math, linear algebra, and calculus (through multivariable). They wanted a course with more data-driven materials, using Excel, with the end product being that students would understand regression.

FALL 2000In the fall of 2000, we piloted one section of the new course, as a team-taught course using the only text we could find that had even close to the right material: Data Analysis and Decision Making with Microsoft Excel by Albright, Winston and Zappe. We followed a traditional sequence of topics, for the most part, and tried to get to regression by deriving least-squares through calculus. Most assignments were traditional, except for the first, a written response to a case-study.

SPRING 2001A second pilot section ran in spring of 2001 with a single instructor. Much of the first content was retained, but reordered. The calculus-dependence was still present. We introduced a long-term data analysis project using real estate data. The students were given local MLS listings (about 300 homes) and developed codes to enter the data; students then entered small sets of the data and sent them to a team coordinator, who checked them and passed them on to the instructor. Students then built models to explain the housing costs.

FALL 2001By fall 2001, we made the decision to keep modifying the course, but to completely eliminate the old, less-focused MATH 117. Throughout our re-design, we were guided by several basic principles: coherence, relevance, depth of understanding, and writing in context. We started to introduce more written assignments with data analysis flavors (using the mathematical tools of the moment) but our assessment was still point/effort based.

SPRING 2002Development continued; we published a handbook for our students containing helpful hints, computer aids, and homework problems. For a text, we were using a stripped-down version of Data Analysis and Decision Making with Microsoft Excel by Albright, Winston and Zappe (only chapters 1, 2, 3, 10 and 11). We constructed a massive matrix of skills and knowledge that students should demonstrate at course end and evaluated them on this matrix.

FALL 2002 - SPRING 2003Work continued on developing a more coherent text, while the course was used to text various ideas. We introduced a PowerPoint-based interactive tutorial on dummy variables to help students understand the material better. First instances of the memo assignments in their current form, placing the students at a consulting firm with a task, and requiring the students to respond in the same rhetorical context. This was a critical breakthrough for us, opening up many new doors.

FALL 2003 - SPRING 2004Over the summer of '03, we produced the first version of the textbook per se under the title Regression Modeling for Management: Thinking and Writing in Context. This, with corrections, expansions, and modifications, has survived to the present.

FALL 2004 - SPRING 2005 Continuing development of the text and course. Adjuncts involved in teaching the course and adding materials.

FALL 2005The title of the book changed to Data Analysis and Modeling: Thinking and Writing in Context. We introduced two new aspects of the text: "unit memos" that covered several chapters and a supplement containing brief lessons on algebra, number systems, and calculus. The unit memos were used in the course in place of the chapter memos to reduce instructor grading and student work load.

SPRING 2006We began further experimentation with the assignments to see what we could do to reduce both instructor work and student work. Essentially these alternate between memo assignments and revisions and shorter, more focused questions.

PRESENTCurrently, our development is multi-pronged: Tying up loose ends in the text. Adding more electronic support for students (interactive PowerPoint tutorials). Publishing materials. Slightly changing the focus of the book from "data analysis and modeling" to "data analysis through modeling". This means that the book is not two threads that occasionally meet, but one thread: using models of data to understand the problem context from which the data were derived.

FUTUREMarketing it as a quantitative reasoning text is one of our goals. We are also involved in modifying the structure of the text to allow for two paths through the book, one for courses with a basic statistics pre-requisite, one without.

The timeline below traces the development of the MSTI 130 Mathematical Modeling and Quantitative Reasoning course at St. John Fisher College since the spring of 2000. To access the timeline, scroll over the various semesters, and information related to that semester will appear in the center of the table.

Student comments about the course

List of talks and presentations about the course:

CONTACT INFORMATION
Kris Green, kgreen@sjfc.edu	St. John Fisher College Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences 3690 East Avenue Rochester, NY 14618
Allen Emerson, aemerson@sjfc.edu