danaleeling

A massive 29 member class looms large over the curriculum this term. 28 of 29 attended day one. The plan was a cold open into the field, but that was, as expected, complexified by backpacks, books, and inappropriate field wear. The open was in the classroom, attendance, and then out into the field to see if some might take the opportunity to slip away.  A day one plant names list was prepared from the class flora . All course information and technology will be reserved to Thursday.  Starting with the Premna serratifolia, a wide arc was cut under drippy skies from the roadside Hibiscus tiliaceus all the through to Palhinhaea cernua. The last plant was a Campnosperma brevipetiolatum below the Palhinhaea cernua. Wrap was at 4:30 on this arc.  Knowledge levels of plants remains in free fall.

As part of an introduction to MS 150 Statistics I showed the students how to enter a few basic statistical functions into a spreadsheet . I then used a Gemini notebook (formerly NotebookLM) preloaded with the textbook chapters to check the work. I started with a prompt: I want to give you some data followed by some statistical questions along with my answers. I want you to check my answers. The data: Car speed in mph 21.2 21.2 . . . 21.2 20.0 The questions: Statistic to calculate Sample size n Mode Median Sample mean x̅ Answers 18 21.2 20 20.3 Note that in the above the data was clipped, the original prompt included all of the data. Gemini/NotebookLM responded with the following analysis: Gemini notebook correctly discerned that the data set was multi-modal. There is a mode.mult function that can be used to return values in a polymodal data set, but that is not usually covered in the course.  The takeaway is that Gemini notebook correctly parsed and responded to a multipart prompt...

This term a course introduction presentation was used to organize the material on the first day. The session included a demonstration of entering formulas into a spreadsheet . A demonstration of NotebookLM/Gemini notebook was done after the spreadsheet demonstration. In a notebook that was already pre-populated with the textbook chapters the following prompt was entered using shift-enter to prevent premature submission: I want to give you some data followed by some statistical questions along with my answers. I want you to check my answers. The data: Car speed in mph 21.2 21.2 . . . 21.2 20.0 The questions: Statistic to calculate Sample size n Mode Median Sample mean x̅ Answers 18 21.2 20 20.3 Notebook responded with the following analysis: After this demonstration the first data exploration was shown, MMs distributed, and massed using the scale.