By virtue of its title Innovations in Education and Teaching International sets its aspirations very high. I’ve just been browsing the latest printed edition where Stewart and Stewart’s article ‘Teaching Bayesian Statistics to Undergraduate Students through Debates’ grabbed my attention. Like most people I have been educated in classical (or frequentist) statistics and have virtually no knowledge of Bayesian statistics—hence the title caught my attention. The article has therefore reminded me to rectify my ignorance.

The title gave me no clue to what I was about to read about though. The lecturer (second author Wayne Stewart) performs debates between ‘frequentists’ and ‘Bayesians’ using two ventriloquist dummies—Freaky the frequentist and his opponent, a doll depicting Thomas Bayes (c.1701-1761) in his persona as a Presbyterian minister (photographs appear in the article).

Personally I find ventriloquist dolls pretty sinister. However as an approach worthy of the label ‘innovation’, it’s going to be hard to surpass. Most of the students found the dummies funny though and claimed to have learned from them.

Sepideh Stewart and Wayne Stewart (2014). “Teaching Bayesian Statistics to Undergraduate Students through Debates.” Innovations in Education and Teaching International 51, no. 6: 653–63.