gmane.comp.lang.r.teaching

Re: Teaching R online

Holliday, Ian E — 2012-05-07T11:23:16

Dear Manuel,

I run an introductory stats course using R and online services using this:
http://www.wessa.net/rfc.wasp

My whole course is managed within this interface.

The platform was developed by Patrick Wessa and more info and publications about this at www.freestatistics.org. Demonstration videos here: http://youtu.be/mEO6d00ViQQ

Patrick invites anyone interested in integrating this in their teaching to get in touch via patrick dot Wessa at gmail dot com.

Regards

Ian

Re: Teaching R online

Sam Lin — 2012-05-07T11:07:50

Hi Manuel,

You might want to try out Moodle for this.

Regards,
Sam

On 7 May 2012 22:00, <r-sig-teaching-request< at >r-project.org> wrote:


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Teaching R online

Manuel Spínola — 2012-05-06T12:57:12

Dear list members,

Is there any advice on how to teach R online?

Is there a way to work simultaneously on R remotely?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best,

Manuel

Re: introducing R to high school students

Liviu Andronic — 2012-05-06T08:03:14

Hello
A bit late to the party..


On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 4:47 AM, Christopher W Ryan
<cryan< at >binghamton.edu> wrote:
Although RExcel was already mentioned, one element conspicuously
missing from this discussion was R GUIs. Some have suggested RStudio
as a practical IDE to R, and I second that. But there are several
other GUIs that may help your students to get a quick grasp of R and
its coding conventions.

Rcmdr and its plug-ins is the inevitable candidate for teaching
basic-statistics. There is also Deducer with its plug-ins and data
editor window, but in my opinion it is less robust and useful in
teaching R coding than Rcmdr. I also like 'playwith', which allows
editing and enhancing various R graphics. Its cousin, 'latticist', is
an excellent GUI to lattice that, given a data frame, allows to easily
generate a range of graphics. Beware, though, of mixing Rcmdr---tcltk
based---and playwith/latticist---mainly GTK based---in the same R
session: there is a nasty bug [1] that often crashes your R instance.

Re

Re: R exercices

cgenolin — 2012-04-22T09:39:56

  

Well, you are perfectly right. It is why in can not write the
lessons myself: I have a C++ way of thinking, and I would like to not
transmit it to my student. 

there isn't a book that presents such exercises. But I was more hopping
to find my happiness in some kind of "classical exercises sheet" that
teachers write for their student. I myself write 11 exercise sheet for
learning the use of the basic structure and the basic test (lesson 1: R
gui interface; lesson 2: reading a file and data basic structure ;
lesson 3: chi square and t test,...) 

Unfortunately, my exercise's
sheets (on my web site) are about "R test". Does any R teachers have
this kind of exercise sheet, but for "learning R basics"? 

Christophe


the wrong message. 
matrix as the unit. 
third example should not be taught as a loop. The simplest way to do 
that in R is by using the outer function. 
simplest statement 
the '*' in the right place 
"*", " "), quote=FALSE) ## suppress the quotation marks 
matrix, and array operations are the

Re: R exercices

Richard M. Heiberger — 2012-04-22T04:15:31

cgenolin,

I am worried that your proposed lessons will teach the wrong message.
The goal of good R programming is to think of the matrix as the unit.
Loops are usually the wrong answer.

Your third example should not be taught as a loop.  The simplest way to do
that in R is by using the outer function.

outer(1:5, 1:5, `>=`)  ## simplest statement

ifelse(outer(1:5, 1:5, `>=`), "*", " ")  ## get the '*' in the right place

print(ifelse(outer(1:5, 1:5, `>=`), "*", " "), quote=FALSE)  ## suppress
the quotation marks
Vector, matrix, and array operations are the important concepts inside a
function.
Most base functions work directly on arrays.  for example
sin(seq(0,pi, length=9))

The apply family of functions are usually much clearer than loops.
Start with the examples in
?lapply


Rich
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:05 AM, cgenolin <cgenolin< at >u-paris10.fr> wrote:


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Re: R exercices

Nilesh Gupta — 2012-04-22T03:43:29

Christophe

I learnt by first language(C) using programming structures similar to the
ones you have mentioned, though i do not see any such programming examples
in R books that I have read. The book which comes closest to teaching R
like i learnt C is Norman Matloff. the art of R programming. The
arrangement of the book is similar to how a normal coding book is written (
a chapter on elementary datatypes and how to declare them, followed by
chapters on loops,controls, other syntax and then followed by more advanced
datatypes(list and frame in case of R).
However even this book does not have the type of examples that you have
mentioned. However if the introductory learner can set up an R environment
and if he works through the solved examples given in the book by actually
typing them in R, that may solve your purpose.

Hope this helps

Nilesh
Forwarded Message
Yes, it is quite different from what I am looking for which will be
more
something like :

--- 8< -----

Exercice 1: wrote a function that compute the

Re: introducing R to high school students

Randy Johnson — 2012-04-20T17:08:37

I work with High School students, and while they are certainly capable, your time constraints and the class size may be the hardest thing to work around. I would second Robert's advice on starting with a clean dataset and a short introductory tutorial.

It would also help a lot to have an additional assistant or two who are familiar enough with R to answer their questions as they begin to play on their own.

Best,
Randy

On Apr 19, 2012, at 5:27 AM, Grant, Robert wrote:



CGTGCTAACGACTACTAG

Re: R exercices

R. Michael Weylandt — 2012-04-20T14:46:56

Sorry typo -- lapply(1:n, function(x) cat(rep("*",x),"\n"))


M


On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:45 AM, R. Michael Weylandt
<michael.weylandt< at >gmail.com> wrote:

Re: R exercices

R. Michael Weylandt — 2012-04-20T14:45:55

R is in the broad family of functional languages -- if your student is
on board with the statistical capabilities of R, he might benefit from
looking at one of the classic tutorials for those while doing the
exercises in R. SICP is a classic, but the syntax doesn't match: maybe
the python version works
http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp12/book/index.html :
alternatively, think Python or think Complexity (both online) provide
another (less difficult) exposition. However, take these options with
a grain of salt: if your student learns R this way, he'll get some bad
R habits that will take a long time to break: I'd highly advise
against any solution that suggests he do the

*
**
***

puzzle with nested loops: performance in later programming assignments
will be terrible. Better to learn good habits now: lapply(1:n,
function(x) cat(rep("*", n), "\n")

Alternatively, working through something like Project Euler in R will
require a little more self-starting, but might be more rewarding after
he masters th

Re: R exercices

cgenolin — 2012-04-20T14:05:32

Thanks for your answer.

Yes, it is quite different from what I am looking for which will be 
more
something like :

--- 8< -----

Exercice 1: wrote a function that compute the surface of a rectangle

Exercice 2: wrote a function that compute factorial n (whithout using 
the
function factorial)

Exercice 3: wrote a function, that given a n, will draw a triangle of 
"*".
Example with n=5

*
**
***
****
*****

--- 8< -----

The first exemple is about writing a (very) simple function and 
returning the result ; the second
need the use of a loop. The third will need two loops (for a beginer).

And so on, on various topic.

Christophe




Links:
------
[1] mailto:R-sig-teaching< at >r-project.org
[2] https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
[3] http://www.avg.com
[4] http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/R_inferno.pdf
[5] mailto:R-sig-teaching< at >r-project.org
[6] https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching

Re: R exercices

Paula Young — 2012-04-20T13:55:47

To echo what was just posted, the R Inferno document is excellent and I
think that, even though it may not be exactly what you are looking for to
help your student, that both you and your student will learn a great deal
about R (and S) as a programming environment by working through the
examples.

PGY
---
Dr. Paula Grafton Young
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Chair, Curriculum Committee, 2011 - 2013
Chair, Strategic Planning Steering Committee, 2012 - 2013
paula.young< at >salem.edu
336.721.2747 (O)
336.721.2653 (F)

 <http://www.facebook.com/SalemCollege>
<http://www.twitter.com/SalemCollege>



On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 9:30 AM, Jeff Laux <jefflaux< at >gmail.com> wrote:


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Re: R exercices

Jeff Laux — 2012-04-20T13:30:55

Are you familiar with R Inferno?  This is a programming-oriented 
tutorial for R by the statistician Patric Burns.  He has generously 
placed it as a pdf online for free 
(http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/R_inferno.pdf); you could also 
purchase a copy.  Of course this will be more than just a few practice 
exercises (a lot more, and actually, I'm not sure there are any 
exercises but you can certainly follow along with the examples).  
Nonetheless, it may still be right up your alley.  There are other 
resources for learning the programming side of R, but only a few that 
are as good, and none other free, so far as I know.  If this is really 
different from what you're looking for, you may want to reply with more 
detail.

Hope that helps.  -Jeff


On 4/20/2012 7:41 AM, cgenolin wrote:

R exercices

cgenolin — 2012-04-20T11:41:20

  

Hi the list, 

I am looking for some exercices for a PhD student
that start to learn R. He already "read" some tutorial, but now he needs
some practice. 

He does *not* need to learn any statistical tools ; he
just needs to work on programmation concept. So I am looking for some
exercice sheet that will, for example, focus on :  

 - structuring the
data (data.frame / list / matrix / ...) 

 - using controle syntax (for
/ if / while / function) 

 - reading data 

 - ... 

Any link for this
kind of material? 

Sincerely 

Christophe 
  
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introducing R to high school students

Bob — 2012-04-19T13:34:55

I know one high school teacher who used R in her AP Statistics
class.  I just dropped her a note to see if she is willing to provide
any links to her work or an email address.  I have also used R as one
software option in online courses over the past few years, and plan to
use it a bit next summer in a workshop for high school AP Statistics
teachers. 

Installation and data file format can grind a demo to a halt in no
time.  I suggest you run stuff on your own machine or use something
like RWEB (Google it).  To use student data maybe you can either send
them info on the file format you need or even better ask them to
submit data beforehand with documentation so you can see if you can
find anything you can use.  My experience is that anyting you ask a
host to get working in advance will not work the day of the demo;-(

R can do some spectacular graphics -- certainly compared to Excel!
Even a simple histogram, which also has the advantage the R is much
EASIER than Excel for such basic graphics.  

If I knew t

Re: introducing R to high school students

Grant, Robert — 2012-04-19T09:27:31

Dear Chris et al

I would strictly control how much of the session looks at their own datasets. This is incredibly demanding on a teacher and your time will vanish before you know it! First, you need to get them typing some basic code and getting nice graphs out. I would focus on things they can't do in Excel/SPSS, such as controlling options like cex and col with variables. But you could get them to work through some good datasets first and then set them loose on their own stuff, maybe in small groups so they can try to stretch beyond what you show them.

I think the Titanic passenger list would be ideal for some binary variables. How topical can you get? (http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/S/Harrell/data/descriptions/titanic.html)

Disclaimer: I'm a university lecturer and probably have typically unrealistic views of high school teaching!

Robert

-----Original Message-----
From: r-sig-teaching-bounces< at >r-project.org [mailto:r-sig-teaching-bounces< at >r-project.org] On Behalf Of Randall Pruim
Sent: 19 April 2012 06:03
To:

Re: introducing R to high school students

Randall Pruim — 2012-04-19T05:02:36

A few thoughts.  You can do what you want with them.

1) Use R formulas.

If you lattice graphics, then lm() and plots have essentially the same  
syntax and you can make nice connections between the graphs and the  
analyses.  For example,

bwplot( weightLoss ~ diet ) or xyplot (weightLoss ~ diet) if the data  
set is small
lm( weightLoss ~ diet )

This approach should give you the "time to get to those topics" since  
the formula interface can be learned through graphical explorations  
first.

If you add the mosaic package to your arsenal, then you can also do  
numerical summaries this way

mean( weightLoss ~ diet )

1a) Some quirks in R you might want to just avoid.

Out of the box, not all of the statistical test functions take a  
formula interface.  binom.test() and chisq.test() require summarized  
data.  t.test() uses a formula for 2-sample tests, but not for 1- 
sample tests.  If time is short, dealing with this might be more  
hassle than it's worth.  You might want to limit yourself to lm() --

introducing R to high school students

Christopher W Ryan — 2012-04-19T02:47:56

After some interesting discussions on r-help list, the suggestion was
made that I could also probably gain some useful insights on this
teaching listserve, a resource that I didn't know about previously.

I participate peripherally on a listserve for middle- and high-school
science teachers. Sometimes questions about graphing or data analysis
come up. I never miss an opportunity to advocate for R. However, the
teachers are often skeptical that the students would be able to issue
commands or write a little code; they think it would be too difficult.
Perhaps this stems from the Microsoft- and spreadsheet-centered,
pointy-clicky culture prevalent in most US public schools. Then again,
I have little experience teaching this age group, besides my own kids
and my Science Olympiad team, so I respect their concerns.

Now I have to put my money where my mouth is. I've offered to visit a
high school and introduce R to some fairly advanced students
participating in a longitudinal 3-year science research class.  To be
c

Re: Distribution of the T test statistic under H0 and Ha

Greg Snow — 2012-04-16T15:44:33

The power.examp function in the TeachingDemos package compares normal
distributions from a null and alternative hypothesis (the
run.power.examp function provides a GUI for the function).  The
normals could be replaced with a T and non-central T distribution (on
my to do list, I actually have contributed code for this, just have
not incorporated it yet).

On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Ali Zanaty <zanaty2005< at >yahoo.com> wrote:

Re: Distribution of the T test statistic under H0 and Ha

AbouEl-Makarim Aboueissa — 2012-04-16T13:56:11

Hi Ali:
 
Try this for the Chi-Square test statistic.
 
good luck
abou
 
 
###############################################################
par(mfrow = c(1,2))

shade.dchisq <- function(df,ncp,a,b, Col="red"){

    #add to plot of normal density, shading area between a and b

    n <- 100
    x <- seq(a,b,length=n)
    y <- dchisq(x,df,ncp)
    X = c(x[1],x,x[n])
    Y =c(0,y,0)
    polygon(X,Y,col=Col)
}

shade.dchisq1 <- function(df,ncp,a,b, density=30){

    #add to plot of chi-square density, shading area between a and b

    n <- 100
    x <- seq(a,b,length=n)
    y <- dchisq(x,df,ncp)
    X = c(x[1],x,x[n])
    Y =c(0,y,0)
    polygon(X,Y,density=density)
}

#### example:

x <- seq(0,20,.01)
y <- dchisq(x,3,0)    ### df=5, ncp=0

x1<-seq(0,20,0.01)
y1<-dchisq(x,3,2)      ### df=5, ncp=2   

plot(x,y,type="l", ylab="density", lwd=3,col="red")  ### xlim=c(-7,10), 

#### title(main="Distributions of T under H0 and Ha")

title(main="                Distributions of T")

lines(x1,y1,lwd=3, col="blue")


shad

Re: Distribution of the T test statistic under H0 and Ha

Liviu Andronic — 2012-04-16T06:23:10

See also the Rcmdr 'Distributions' menu.

Liviu