Math Options Increased with New Stat Course

Campolindo will offer Statistics next year as an option for students who are intimidated by AP Statistics but want a 4th year of math on their transcripts.

The class is intended mostly for seniors, though the only prerequisite is Algebra 2. The class will be taught by math teachers Nick Schoen and Ken Ingersoll and will use a new textbook.

Schoen said that the math teachers “were noticing there were a lot of people in AP Statistics who were there because there was nowhere else to go.” He added that, for some seniors, the AP curriculum was a stretch, but there was no alternative.

Ingersoll added that statistics is “a very useful course going into college because most majors require statistics in some form.”

Statistics will differ from the AP course because the teachers have more freedom to teach through an activity-based curriculum, with “less heavy-duty activities,” according to Schoen.

Schoen explained that activity-based lessons are helpful tools for teaching statistics, but that the AP calendar doesn’t allow enough time for such lessons. He said students in the new class will still most likely take Statistics again in college, but the new class will give students a solid foundation.

“Intro to Stat allows me to have less stress than any other math course, but it also won’t be so easy that it won’t challenge me,” said junior Kaley Grupe, a prospective Statistics student.

“I think the math teachers decided to create and teach this class because it is a slower-paced class that will still cover most of the information that is taught in AP Stat without the rush to learn everything before AP testing. It also allows seniors, who will most likely be the main grade of students in the class, to be more relaxed and have their senior-itis kick in,” Grupe added.

Ingersoll agreed that “not all students would like to take an AP Statistics class as a senior.”

According to Ingersoll, another exciting aspect to the less rigorous class is its interdisciplinary aspect. Ingersoll said that the teachers’ “idea for this course is to make it more of an organic statistical course where we process data and learn the basics that will be absolutely useful for college.”

As for cross-subject interaction, Schoen said that “there is a lot of data collection going on right here on campus. There’s a weather station and radiation monitoring that we could analyze in connection with the science classes.” The main goal of the new class is to encourage students to “find data a little less intimidating.”