andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-2009 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: Eoin Lawless wrote me: I’ve been reading your blog (and John Kruschke ‘s) for several months now, as a result of starting to learn Bayesian methods from Doing Bayesian Data Analysis [I love the title of that book! --- ed.]. More recently I completed a Coursera course on Data Science. I found learning through the medium of a online course to be an amazing experience. It does not replace books, but learning new material at the same time as other people and discussing it in the forums is very motivational. Additionally it is much easier to work through exercises and projects when there is a deadline and some element of competition than to plow through the end of chapter exercises in a book. This is especially true, I believe, when the learning is for a long term goal, rather than to be used immediately in work, for example. My question: you are obviously evangelical about the benefits that Bayesian statistics brings, have you ever considered producing a Coursera (or similar) cour
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Eoin Lawless wrote me: I’ve been reading your blog (and John Kruschke ‘s) for several months now, as a result of starting to learn Bayesian methods from Doing Bayesian Data Analysis [I love the title of that book! [sent-1, score-0.112]
2 More recently I completed a Coursera course on Data Science. [sent-4, score-0.418]
3 I found learning through the medium of a online course to be an amazing experience. [sent-5, score-0.842]
4 It does not replace books, but learning new material at the same time as other people and discussing it in the forums is very motivational. [sent-6, score-0.375]
5 Additionally it is much easier to work through exercises and projects when there is a deadline and some element of competition than to plow through the end of chapter exercises in a book. [sent-7, score-0.836]
6 This is especially true, I believe, when the learning is for a long term goal, rather than to be used immediately in work, for example. [sent-8, score-0.203]
7 My question: you are obviously evangelical about the benefits that Bayesian statistics brings, have you ever considered producing a Coursera (or similar) course? [sent-9, score-0.357]
8 And Flavio Nardi writes: I am a PhD student in finance with a strong interest in Bayesian statistics. [sent-10, score-0.084]
9 I have never taken a course in Bayesian stat before, but I did buy the Bayesian Data Analysis book for self study. [sent-11, score-0.59]
10 Though very well written, I feel that supporting lectures would enhance the learning experience a great deal, of course. [sent-12, score-0.453]
11 I have been looking for a serious online course dedicated to Bayesian statistics, but found none. [sent-13, score-0.647]
12 I wonder whether you have considered teaching a free online Bayesian statistics course based on your book, maybe on Coursera? [sent-14, score-0.931]
13 My reply: I’m not quite sure what it takes to put together such an online course. [sent-15, score-0.212]
14 If someone came to me with a plan, maybe I’d consider it. [sent-16, score-0.105]
15 In the meantime, I’m trying to set it up so that my course this semester at ENSAE will be a G+ hangout (each Friday 8h30, starting 18 oct). [sent-17, score-0.727]
16 I will post the slides and homework assignments. [sent-18, score-0.155]
17 If you’re not in the course, we won’t grade your homeworks. [sent-19, score-0.14]
18 But maybe those of you who are interested in taking the course remotely via G+ hangout will be able to organize something where you grade each others’ papers, or hire a local “teaching assistant” to do the grading for you? [sent-20, score-1.224]
19 Maybe that’s a more sustainable model for such courses in any case, rather than having many thousands of people all pay to a central organization which then must hire TA’s etc. [sent-22, score-0.323]
wordName wordTfidf (topN-words)
[('course', 0.339), ('coursera', 0.338), ('bayesian', 0.248), ('online', 0.212), ('learning', 0.203), ('exercises', 0.197), ('hangout', 0.197), ('hire', 0.149), ('grade', 0.14), ('plow', 0.12), ('starting', 0.112), ('kruschke', 0.108), ('maybe', 0.105), ('remotely', 0.104), ('evangelical', 0.104), ('teaching', 0.103), ('sustainable', 0.101), ('forums', 0.101), ('considered', 0.097), ('grading', 0.096), ('dedicated', 0.096), ('organize', 0.094), ('enhance', 0.094), ('additionally', 0.094), ('oct', 0.094), ('book', 0.094), ('element', 0.092), ('deadline', 0.091), ('medium', 0.088), ('self', 0.085), ('homework', 0.084), ('finance', 0.084), ('friday', 0.083), ('producing', 0.081), ('lectures', 0.08), ('semester', 0.079), ('completed', 0.079), ('assistant', 0.078), ('supporting', 0.076), ('statistics', 0.075), ('brings', 0.075), ('phd', 0.074), ('courses', 0.073), ('meantime', 0.073), ('stat', 0.072), ('ta', 0.072), ('slides', 0.071), ('competition', 0.071), ('replace', 0.071), ('projects', 0.068)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 1.0000001 2009 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-05-A locally organized online BDA course on G+ hangout?
Introduction: Eoin Lawless wrote me: I’ve been reading your blog (and John Kruschke ‘s) for several months now, as a result of starting to learn Bayesian methods from Doing Bayesian Data Analysis [I love the title of that book! --- ed.]. More recently I completed a Coursera course on Data Science. I found learning through the medium of a online course to be an amazing experience. It does not replace books, but learning new material at the same time as other people and discussing it in the forums is very motivational. Additionally it is much easier to work through exercises and projects when there is a deadline and some element of competition than to plow through the end of chapter exercises in a book. This is especially true, I believe, when the learning is for a long term goal, rather than to be used immediately in work, for example. My question: you are obviously evangelical about the benefits that Bayesian statistics brings, have you ever considered producing a Coursera (or similar) cour
2 0.22679467 1611 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-07-Feedback on my Bayesian Data Analysis class at Columbia
Introduction: In one of the final Jitts, we asked the students how the course could be improved. Some of their suggestions would work, some would not. I’m putting all the suggestions below, interpolating my responses. (Overall, I think the course went well. Please remember that the remarks below are not course evaluations; they are answers to my specific question of how the course could be better. If we’d had a Jitt asking all the ways the course was good, you’d be seeing lots of positive remarks. But that wouldn’t be particularly useful or interesting.) The best thing about the course is that the kids worked hard each week on their homeworks. OK, here are the comments and my replies: Could have been better if we did less amount but more in detail. I don’t know if this would’ve been possible. I wanted to get to the harder stuff (HMC, VB, nonparametric models) which required a certain amount of preparation. And, even so, there was not time for everything. And also, needs solut
3 0.19699621 2068 andrew gelman stats-2013-10-18-G+ hangout for Bayesian Data Analysis course now! (actually, in 5 minutes)
Introduction: Here’s the link . When you’re on the hangout, please mute your own microphone! I’ll have the computer point at the blackboard. You can follow along with the slides: for the first hour for the second hour P.S. Apparently there is some limit on number of hangout participants (see comments). I didn’t know about that! Maybe next time will try “on air” hangout, I will have to learn more about this. Next week the teaching asst will do the course so no hangout, then in two weeks there is no class because it’s the day after Halloween and that’s a holiday around here. So we’ll resume this on Fri 8 Nov. See you then! P.P.S. Those of you who were able to join the hangout: Could you please let me know how the visual and sound quality were? Thanks.
4 0.18582951 2100 andrew gelman stats-2013-11-14-BDA class G+ hangout another try
Introduction: Tomorrow (Thurs) 8h30 (Paris time) I will be teaching my Bayesian Data Analysis class (class4a.pdf and class4b.pdf, you can follow the slides here ). We had problems earlier with the regular G+ hangout, so this time we’re trying the G+ On-Air Hangout which I think should work better. I’ll post a blog entry tomorrow with a link to the hangout. Let’s hope for the best!
5 0.16940984 65 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-03-How best to learn R?
Introduction: Alban Zeber writes: I am wondering whether there is a reference (online or book) that you would recommend to someone who is interested in learning how to program in R. Any thoughts? P.S. If I had a name like that, my books would be named, “Bayesian Statistics from A to Z,” “Teaching Statistics from A to Z,” “Regression and Multilevel Modeling from A to Z,” and so forth.
6 0.1655587 1965 andrew gelman stats-2013-08-02-My course this fall on l’analyse bayésienne de données
7 0.16019167 2345 andrew gelman stats-2014-05-24-An interesting mosaic of a data programming course
8 0.15691882 1554 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-31-It not necessary that Bayesian methods conform to the likelihood principle
9 0.15393548 717 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-17-Statistics plagiarism scandal
10 0.14174697 2368 andrew gelman stats-2014-06-11-Bayes in the research conversation
11 0.1415067 534 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-24-Bayes at the end
12 0.14138058 2064 andrew gelman stats-2013-10-16-Test run for G+ hangout for my Bayesian Data Analysis class
13 0.13897064 1517 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-01-“On Inspiring Students and Being Human”
15 0.13685265 1948 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-21-Bayes related
16 0.13023484 277 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-14-In an introductory course, when does learning occur?
17 0.12849644 1205 andrew gelman stats-2012-03-09-Coming to agreement on philosophy of statistics
18 0.12834014 1502 andrew gelman stats-2012-09-19-Scalability in education
19 0.12460819 2175 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-18-A course in sample surveys for political science
20 0.12426476 749 andrew gelman stats-2011-06-06-“Sampling: Design and Analysis”: a course for political science graduate students
topicId topicWeight
[(0, 0.216), (1, 0.022), (2, -0.16), (3, 0.088), (4, -0.032), (5, 0.164), (6, -0.017), (7, 0.122), (8, -0.005), (9, -0.039), (10, 0.082), (11, 0.005), (12, 0.078), (13, 0.017), (14, 0.125), (15, -0.012), (16, -0.003), (17, 0.029), (18, -0.018), (19, -0.007), (20, 0.011), (21, 0.106), (22, -0.005), (23, 0.001), (24, -0.083), (25, -0.005), (26, 0.002), (27, -0.111), (28, 0.071), (29, -0.001), (30, 0.015), (31, -0.024), (32, -0.04), (33, -0.034), (34, 0.051), (35, 0.043), (36, -0.041), (37, -0.029), (38, -0.004), (39, -0.002), (40, -0.005), (41, -0.054), (42, -0.003), (43, 0.022), (44, -0.027), (45, 0.049), (46, 0.082), (47, 0.047), (48, 0.02), (49, 0.009)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 0.98163098 2009 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-05-A locally organized online BDA course on G+ hangout?
Introduction: Eoin Lawless wrote me: I’ve been reading your blog (and John Kruschke ‘s) for several months now, as a result of starting to learn Bayesian methods from Doing Bayesian Data Analysis [I love the title of that book! --- ed.]. More recently I completed a Coursera course on Data Science. I found learning through the medium of a online course to be an amazing experience. It does not replace books, but learning new material at the same time as other people and discussing it in the forums is very motivational. Additionally it is much easier to work through exercises and projects when there is a deadline and some element of competition than to plow through the end of chapter exercises in a book. This is especially true, I believe, when the learning is for a long term goal, rather than to be used immediately in work, for example. My question: you are obviously evangelical about the benefits that Bayesian statistics brings, have you ever considered producing a Coursera (or similar) cour
2 0.81929731 1965 andrew gelman stats-2013-08-02-My course this fall on l’analyse bayésienne de données
Introduction: X marks the spot . I’ll post the slides soon (not just for the students in my class; these should be helpful for anyone teaching Bayesian data analysis from our book ). But I don’t think you’ll get much from reading the slides alone; you’ll get more out of the book (or, of course, from taking the class).
3 0.77191889 1199 andrew gelman stats-2012-03-05-Any available cookbooks on Bayesian designs?
Introduction: Robert Bell writes: I [Bell] just finished “The Emperor of All Maladies” from 2010. One of the sections is captioned with the “In God we trust, all others bring data” quote which is supposedly from Deming. If you haven’t read it, I think you might like it even though the topic is pretty morbid (i.e. cancer). I was rereading chapter 7 in Bayesian Data Analysis. While the principles there would allow me to “roll my own”, I was wondering whether or not there is now a comprehensive “cookbook” out there that gathers together such analyses for a variety of experimental designs – sort of a Bayesian equivalent to Montgomery’s “Design and Analysis of Experiments”. My reply: I don’t know, but now I’m thinking we should put some of this in our forthcoming book, Statistics for Psychology Research. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to post them in comments.
4 0.76718307 1611 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-07-Feedback on my Bayesian Data Analysis class at Columbia
Introduction: In one of the final Jitts, we asked the students how the course could be improved. Some of their suggestions would work, some would not. I’m putting all the suggestions below, interpolating my responses. (Overall, I think the course went well. Please remember that the remarks below are not course evaluations; they are answers to my specific question of how the course could be better. If we’d had a Jitt asking all the ways the course was good, you’d be seeing lots of positive remarks. But that wouldn’t be particularly useful or interesting.) The best thing about the course is that the kids worked hard each week on their homeworks. OK, here are the comments and my replies: Could have been better if we did less amount but more in detail. I don’t know if this would’ve been possible. I wanted to get to the harder stuff (HMC, VB, nonparametric models) which required a certain amount of preparation. And, even so, there was not time for everything. And also, needs solut
5 0.74124616 1890 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-09-Frontiers of Science update
Introduction: This is just a local Columbia thing, so I’m posting Sunday night when nobody will read it . . . Samantha Cooney reports in the Spectator (Columbia’s student newspaper): Frontiers of Science may be in for an overhaul. After a year reviewing the course, the Educational Policy and Planning Committee has issued a report detailing its findings and outlining potential ways to make the oft-maligned course more effective. The EPPC’s report, a copy of which was obtained by Spectator, suggests eliminating the lecture portion of the course in favor of small seminars with a standardized curriculum, mirroring other courses in the Core Curriculum. This seems reasonable to me. It sounds like the seminar portion of the class has been much more successful than the lectures. Once the lectures are removed entirely, perhaps it will allow the students to focus on learning during the seminar periods. Also, I appreciate that Cooney did a good job quoting me. As I wrote last month , I respe
6 0.72191828 896 andrew gelman stats-2011-09-09-My homework success
7 0.71253616 1948 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-21-Bayes related
8 0.71041775 65 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-03-How best to learn R?
9 0.70680505 534 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-24-Bayes at the end
10 0.69741976 133 andrew gelman stats-2010-07-08-Gratuitous use of “Bayesian Statistics,” a branding issue?
11 0.69609648 2345 andrew gelman stats-2014-05-24-An interesting mosaic of a data programming course
12 0.69328481 1517 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-01-“On Inspiring Students and Being Human”
13 0.69112223 884 andrew gelman stats-2011-09-01-My course this fall on Bayesian Computation
14 0.68948728 42 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-19-Updated solutions to Bayesian Data Analysis homeworks
15 0.68562537 2175 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-18-A course in sample surveys for political science
16 0.68329066 1912 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-24-Bayesian quality control?
18 0.67935914 1259 andrew gelman stats-2012-04-11-How things sound to us, versus how they sound to others
19 0.67653966 2368 andrew gelman stats-2014-06-11-Bayes in the research conversation
topicId topicWeight
[(4, 0.01), (15, 0.012), (16, 0.086), (23, 0.034), (24, 0.125), (43, 0.024), (46, 0.033), (47, 0.028), (57, 0.01), (70, 0.012), (73, 0.011), (77, 0.017), (86, 0.067), (88, 0.042), (99, 0.366)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 0.9844265 2009 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-05-A locally organized online BDA course on G+ hangout?
Introduction: Eoin Lawless wrote me: I’ve been reading your blog (and John Kruschke ‘s) for several months now, as a result of starting to learn Bayesian methods from Doing Bayesian Data Analysis [I love the title of that book! --- ed.]. More recently I completed a Coursera course on Data Science. I found learning through the medium of a online course to be an amazing experience. It does not replace books, but learning new material at the same time as other people and discussing it in the forums is very motivational. Additionally it is much easier to work through exercises and projects when there is a deadline and some element of competition than to plow through the end of chapter exercises in a book. This is especially true, I believe, when the learning is for a long term goal, rather than to be used immediately in work, for example. My question: you are obviously evangelical about the benefits that Bayesian statistics brings, have you ever considered producing a Coursera (or similar) cour
2 0.97843921 2184 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-24-Parables vs. stories
Introduction: God is in every leaf of every tree , but he is not in every leaf of every parable. Let me explain with a story. A few months ago I read the new book, Doing Data Science, by Rachel Schutt and Cathy O’Neal, and I came across the following motivation for comprehensive integration of data sources, a story that is reminiscent of the parables we sometimes see in business books: By some estimates, one or two patients died per week in a certain smallish town because of the lack of information flow between the hospital’s emergency room and the nearby mental health clinic. In other words, if the records had been easier to match, they’d have been able to save more lives. On the other hand, if it had been easy to match records, other breaches of confidence might also have occurred. Of course it’s hard to know exactly how many lives are at stake, but it’s nontrivial. The moral: We can assume we think privacy is a generally good thing. . . . But privacy takes lives too, as we see from
3 0.9773984 110 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-26-Philosophy and the practice of Bayesian statistics
Introduction: Here’s an article that I believe is flat-out entertaining to read. It’s about philosophy, so it’s supposed to be entertaining, in any case. Here’s the abstract: A substantial school in the philosophy of science identifies Bayesian inference with inductive inference and even rationality as such, and seems to be strengthened by the rise and practical success of Bayesian statistics. We argue that the most successful forms of Bayesian statistics do not actually support that particular philosophy but rather accord much better with sophisticated forms of hypothetico-deductivism. We examine the actual role played by prior distributions in Bayesian models, and the crucial aspects of model checking and model revision, which fall outside the scope of Bayesian confirmation theory. We draw on the literature on the consistency of Bayesian updating and also on our experience of applied work in social science. Clarity about these matters should benefit not just philosophy of science, but
4 0.97712398 731 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-26-Lottery probability update
Introduction: It was reported last year that the national lottery of Israel featured the exact same 6 numbers (out of 45) twice in the same month, and statistics professor Isaac Meilijson of Tel Aviv University was quoted as saying that “the incident of six numbers repeating themselves within a month is an event of once in 10,000 years.” I shouldn’t mock when it comes to mathematics–after all, I proved a false theorem once! (Or, to be precise, my collaborator and I published a false claim which we thought we’d proved, thus we thought was a theorem.) So let me retract the mockery and move, first to the mathematics and then to the statistics. First, how many possibilities are there in pick 6 out of 45? It’s (45*44*43*42*41*40)/6! = 8,145,060. Let’s call this number N. Second, what’s the probability that the same numbers repeat in a single calendar month? I’ve been told that the Israeli lottery has 2 draws per week, That’s 104/12=8.67 draws per month. Or maybe they skip some holiday
5 0.97576255 2058 andrew gelman stats-2013-10-11-Gladwell and Chabris, David and Goliath, and science writing as stone soup
Introduction: The only thing is, I’m not sure who’s David here and who is Goliath. From the standpoint of book sales, Gladwell is Goliath for sure. On the other hand, Gladwell’s credibility has been weakened over the years by fights with bigshots such as Steven Pinker. Maybe the best analogy is a boxing match where Gladwell stands in the ring and fighter after fighter is sent in to bang him up. At some point the heavyweight gets a little bit tired. (Recently Gladwell had a New Yorker column defending dopers such as Lance Armstrong, so I suspect he’ll have Kaiser Fung coming after him again , once the current lucha with Chabris is over.) Chabris took his swing at Gladwell a few days ago, as I reported here . Yesterday was Gladwell’s turn . I have a lot of sympathy for the Blink-man here: he writes these bestsellers and puts himself out there, so he’s a target. If Gladwell’s books were generic business-bestseller pap of the be-yourself-and-be-tough variety, he wouldn’t get hassled. It
6 0.9757328 532 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-23-My Wall Street Journal story
7 0.9745611 315 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-03-He doesn’t trust the fit . . . r=.999
8 0.97455209 1743 andrew gelman stats-2013-02-28-Different modes of discourse
10 0.97392809 1450 andrew gelman stats-2012-08-08-My upcoming talk for the data visualization meetup
11 0.97361434 1688 andrew gelman stats-2013-01-22-That claim that students whose parents pay for more of college get worse grades
13 0.97338724 324 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-07-Contest for developing an R package recommendation system
14 0.9731912 1529 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-11-Bayesian brains?
15 0.97290874 2263 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-24-Empirical implications of Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models
16 0.97220755 1930 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-09-Symposium Magazine
17 0.9721936 288 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-21-Discussion of the paper by Girolami and Calderhead on Bayesian computation
18 0.97208941 2337 andrew gelman stats-2014-05-18-Never back down: The culture of poverty and the culture of journalism
19 0.97157812 1656 andrew gelman stats-2013-01-05-Understanding regression models and regression coefficients