Instructor Interview
Below, Dr. Jeremy Orloff and Dr. Jennifer French Kamrin describe various aspects of how they taught 18.05 Introduction to Probability and Statistics in spring 2023.
Why Teach Probability and Statistics Together?
Including Materials for Teachers
Curriculum Information
Prerequisites
Requirements Satisfied
18.05 can be applied toward a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, but is not required.
18.05 can be applied toward a Minor in Economics, but is not required.
18.05 satisfies the Restricted Elective in Science and Technology (MIT General Institute Requirement).
Offered
Every spring semester
Assessment
- Reading questions: 5%
- In-class clicker questions: 5%
- Eleven problem sets, lowest grade dropped: 25%
- Midterm exams (12.5% each) and R quiz (5%): 30%
- Final exam: 30%
Student Information
Enrollment
37 students
Breakdown by Year
Mostly third- and fourth-year undergraduates
Breakdown by Major
About 50% of the students were Electrical Engineering and Computer Science majors, most of whom were in either Computer Science and Molecular Biology or Computation and Cognition; another 15% were Biology majors; the remainder represented a range of other fields.
How Student Time Was Spent
During an average week, students were expected to spend 12 hours on the course, roughly divided as follows:
Lectures (2 hours 40 minutes)
Met twice per week for 80 minutes per session; mandatory attendance.
Studios (50 minutes)
Met once per week for 50 minutes per session, working on longer problems that involved the use of R, a computer programming language developed especially for statistical computing.
Out of Class (8 hours 30 minutes)
Outside of class, students completed problem sets and studied for exams.
