Discusion 8 and response

Discussion 8-2

Share the most helpful one or two resources you used in this course.  In response to your peers, visit the resources they suggested and explain why you agree or disagree that these are the best resources.

Response one 8-2

I have used multiple resources to assist me with fully understanding the various concepts we have discussed throughout this course.  In addition to our textbook, I also found the Kahn Academy to be extremely helpful.  I have had several statistical concepts during this course which have caused me some effort to fully comprehend.  I was able to watch the corresponding video tutorials on the Kahn Academy, sometimes multiple times, and found the information was presented in a format I understood more clearly.   I found great value in the manner in which the data was presented on this website and extremely grateful we were introduced to it by our instructor.

Response two 8-2

Throughout this course, I used many resources. Although the textbook was my primary and most used resource, I also found Khan Academy to be helpful. Listening to examples of problems and being able to watch the math done out by hand was very valuable. Often the textbook would go too fast or assume information was remembered and retained from prior chapters. Khan Academy videos never assumed anything was known about the problem. Looking forward, I wish there were videos or better explanations of the more difficult problems in the textbook that many other classmates struggled with as well. These explanations and videos would help classmates who are struggling on particular concepts. It is hard to move forward in Biostatistics when a concept is not clearly understood from prior lessons. 

Response three 8-2

 The resources that I found to be most helpful throughout this course were the required textbook and the Khan Academy videos.  The Khan Academy videos really helped to break down each calculation and it really helped to both hear and see the problems step by step.  I also found that while reading the book it was imperative to do all the practice exercises to really ensure understanding. I do, however, wish that there was a way to obtain the answers for the even numbered exercises from the book as sometimes seeing the correct answer allowed me to realize where my mistake was ie: a misplaced decimal point or a simple math miscalculation.  These were the two primary resources that I used throughout the course, but I also used the resources Dr. Thomas supplied in the announcements, the questions and answers posed on the discussion board and the stat crunch videos.