Adapting the Statistical Software Resampling State to Teach

The statistical software program "Resampling Stats" will be modified to serve as a teaching instrument, with emphasis on students in colleges of education - our future teachers. The American Statistical Association (ASA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCRM) identify probability and statistics as vital subjects for high school students. Unfortunately, education students too often approach their statistics course with fear and dread, hoping to put the subject out of their minds as soon as they pass the course. These future teachers' ability to teach probability and statistics to middle and high schoolers is crippled. Research indicates that students taught statistics via simulation (flipping coins, drawing numbers from a hat, and the computer equivalents of such procedures) learn more, have a more positive attitude toward the subject and are more likely to retain and use what they learn. Simulation will have greater acceptance in the classroom when the computer programs used are more user friendly. (Many programs achieve user-friendliness by making it easy for students to enter data, then "click here" to produce output from a set of "black box" procedures. This is not the type of user- friendliness that promotes learning.) The planned modifications to Resampling Stats will make it easier to use while at the same time leading students to confront and answer important statistical questions concerning their dam