andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-1722 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Following up on our earlier discussion, Daniel Rubenson from Ryerson University in Toronto writes: The course went really well (it was a couple of years ago now). The course was run through a partnership my department has with the Ontario Fire College. Basically, firefighters can do a certificate and sometimes a degree in public administration and part of that is a course on methods. It was a small group — about 8 or so — very motivated guys (all guys). Some of them were chiefs or deputy chiefs from small towns, others captains who were doing the certificate in order to improve their chances for promotion or as a step into a broader public admin career. I had asked them ahead of time to bring with them whatever data they could get their hands on and that they thought would be interesting. This included response times, data on professional v voluntary firefighters, some insurance data and the like. I should mention that is was an intensive mode course. So we had 4.5 days toge
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1 Basically, firefighters can do a certificate and sometimes a degree in public administration and part of that is a course on methods. [sent-3, score-0.31]
2 Some of them were chiefs or deputy chiefs from small towns, others captains who were doing the certificate in order to improve their chances for promotion or as a step into a broader public admin career. [sent-5, score-0.575]
3 I had asked them ahead of time to bring with them whatever data they could get their hands on and that they thought would be interesting. [sent-6, score-0.193]
4 This included response times, data on professional v voluntary firefighters, some insurance data and the like. [sent-7, score-0.236]
5 With this in mind, I started by doing a few exercises to get them thinking about data and numbers. [sent-11, score-0.401]
6 We spent a morning playing around with these sorts of exercises and then transitioned into some lecture time going through the ideas of taking a concept and moving toward a variable, thinking about measurement etc. [sent-13, score-0.579]
7 We did an intro to very basic descriptive statistics and the students worked in pairs with the data they’d brought as well other data I came with or had simulated. [sent-15, score-0.264]
8 I found with this type of group in particular that working in pairs or groups was very useful. [sent-16, score-0.275]
9 We did exercises teaching concepts of probability and different distributions. [sent-17, score-0.315]
10 We also spent a fair amount of time talking and thinking about what for lack of a better term would be called research design. [sent-19, score-0.254]
11 I think one of the main take aways for me was that it’s important with this kind of group — and also because of the intensive format — to really mix it up in terms of lecturing, exercises, games, group work, short assignments and quizzes etc. [sent-30, score-0.421]
12 And Brent Van Scoy from Omaha Fire in Nebraska writes: I am not certain what fire code Canada follows, but most of the local departments are trying to become compliant with NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) 1710, which covers fractal time responses. [sent-31, score-0.657]
13 There are many different levels, but basically it measures different periods of times for fire department responses. [sent-32, score-0.665]
14 As an example, time of dispatch until the unit leaves the engine house and also the time it takes for the until to “travel” to the call. [sent-33, score-0.392]
15 It includes many other variables depending on the type of incident, but as general rule it is a fairly straightforward measurement of time. [sent-34, score-0.25]
16 The code requires that 90% of the time a unit should arrive within 5 minutes, which would seem pretty straightforward, but the controversy comes with how it is interrupted. [sent-35, score-0.337]
17 Instead, others look at the average time of all the calls and considered the code met if the average is below 5 minutes. [sent-37, score-0.333]
18 Part of my job is presenting that information in a way that will help them understand the range of calls that were greater than 5 minutes. [sent-38, score-0.247]
19 If you have a few minutes, this article is worth a few minutes of your time (Los Angeles Fire). [sent-39, score-0.23]
20 We use our data to help us place units/rigs in different parts of the city to help improve our NFPA 1710 compliance. [sent-44, score-0.386]
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