Schedule

Schedule#

Date

#

Topic(s)

Covered in class

Reading

Unit 1:

Thinking about scale

Week 1

Monday

3/31/25

1

Welcome to STATS 60!

What is statistics all about? What to expect from the course.

Wednesday

4/2/25

2

Thinking about scale

Contextualizing questions and ballpark estimates/Fermi problems

Chapter 5 of “Calling Bullshit”

Thursday

4/3/25

-

Discussion

Fermi problem contest

Friday

4/4/25

3

Cost/benefit analysis; Quiz in class

What should we recycle? Does your vote count?

Unit 2:

Probability

Week 2

Monday

4/7/25

4

Intro to probability

Modeling uncertainty. Probability in simple experiments.

Wednesday

4/9/25

5

Coincidences

How surprising is a coincidence? The birthday paradox.

Thursday

4/10/25

-

Discussion

News scavenger hunt: probabilistic statements in the news

Friday

4/11/25

6

Conditioning and Bayes’ rule; Quiz in class

Odds in games and gambling

Week 3

Monday

4/14/25

7

False negatives and false positives

Wednesday

4/16/25

8

Fallacies in conditional logic

P[A|B] vs P[B|A], conjunction fallacy, “hot guys are jerks”

Thursday

4/17/25

-

Discussion

News scavenger hunt: conditional probabilities and fallacies

Friday

4/18/25

9

Fermi meets probability; Quiz in class

Cost/benefit analysis with uncertainty.

Unit 3:

Exploratory Data Analysis

Week 4

Monday

4/21/25

10

Data collection day

Wednesday

4/23/25

11

Data visualization

Thursday

4/24/25

-

Discussion

Friday

4/25/25

12

Fundamental summary statistics part 1: Central tendency; Quiz in class

Means and averages, median.

Week 5

Monday

4/28/25

13

Fundamental summary statistics part 2: Variability

Standard deviation, variance, quantiles, multi-modal data

Wednesday

4/30/25

14

Same mean, different meaning

Very different data with similar summary statistics—beware! Outliers and robustness.

Thursday

5/1/25

-

Discussion

Friday

5/2/25

15

Fundamental summary statistics part 3: Correlation; Quiz in class

Correlation and trends, scatterplots, regression.

Unit 4:

Correlation and Experiments

Week 6

Monday

5/5/25

16

Sampling, variability, and sample bias

How well does sample data reflect the ground truth? Independent or “random” samples vs. biased samples.

Wednesday

5/7/25

17

Polling and sample averages, part 1: the role of n

Variability decreases with sample size (in class experiment).

Thursday

5/8/25

-

Discussion

Friday

5/9/25

18

Polling and sample averages, part 2: confidence; Quiz in class

Two standard deviations and the Normal/Bell curve.

Week 7

Monday

5/12/25

19

Hypothesis testing and p-values

Statistical framework for testing, p-values

Wednesday

5/14/25

20

Testing for correlation

Goodness-of-fit test

Thursday

5/15/25

-

Discussion

Friday

5/16/25

21

Correlation vs. causation; Quiz in class

Week 8

Monday

5/19/25

22

Observational Studies and Randomized Experiments

Wednesday

5/21/25

23

Potential Outcomes Model

Thursday

5/22/25

-

Discussion

Friday

5/23/25

24

Guest speaker; Quiz in class

~~Monday~~

5/26/25

-

~~MEMORIAL DAY, NO CLASS~~

Unit 5:

Regression and Machine Learning

Week 9

Wednesday

5/28/25

25

Linear regression

Prediction and fitting a model to samples.

Thursday

5/29/25

-

Discussion

Friday

5/30/25

26

Model size/type and expressiveness; Quiz in class

Polynomial regression, relationship between model type and prediction ability.

Week 10

Monday

6/2/25

27

Markov text generators

Wednesday

6/4/25

28

Outtro

Finals week

Monday

6/9/25

Final Exam, location TBA