The fast-paced world of rapid-fire TV commercials, action movies and dynamic video games does not prepare college students for sitting in a statistics lecture and absorbing the material presented on a subject that seems remote and difficult. Yet, quantitative reasoning skills are essential if these students are to be capable of filling the jobs necessary to keep America competitive in the world economy and of making crucial decisions on issues affecting societal advancement. Traditional statistics courses do not build on the interests and culture of the students to get them actively involved in the learning of the subject. This project is revising, through creative use of technology, the content, conduct and quality of introductory statistics courses so as to improve the quantitative reasoning skills of all undergraduates. This is being accomplished through a series of computerized units that allow students to "discover" basic concepts of statistics while engaged in hands-on activities at a computer work station. Such an exploratory, discovery-based approach to learning statistics requires that the course be taught with a computer laboratory.
