Interactive Classroom Examples for Data Science
Overview
This page provides tools designed for interactive presentations of key topics in Data Science. All tools are designed to fill up an entire web browser screen on a standard projection system with minimal scrolling to maximize the visibility to the audience.
Monty Hall Interactive "Let's Make a Deal" Game
The classic American game show "Let's Make a Deal" was hosted by Monty Hall. In the game show, Monty presents contestants with three doors. Behind one door was a prize and the other two doors contained nothing of value (classically, the TV show had a goat). Once a player has selected a door, Monty reveals a losing door and gives the player the chance to swap doors (changing for their original door to only other unopened door). This game show represents how knowing more about a problem can change the probability of success.
This interactive tool allows the game to be played an infinite number of times by refreshing the page for a new, random game. The random game identifier displayed at the top of the screen encodes the position of the winning door. When reading the number from left-to-right, the first digit that is a 1, 2, or 3 encodes that the winning door.
This interactive tool was used the The University of Illinois' 2020 Annual Faculty Retreat and has been used in STAT 107: Data Science Discovery.
"Birthday Problem" Interactive Calendar
A famous, shocking outcome of statistics is that you only need 23 people in a room to have a greater than 50% chance that two people share a birthday. This interactive tool allows you to visually track birthdays in a room to find out how many people are needed until you find two people who share a birthday.
Used in: STAT 107: Data Science Discovery, STAT 100: Statistics
