Business Statistics is designed to encourage ALL students to attain proficiency in core statistical and financial skills while challenging advanced students with an enhanced experience. Students differentiate themselves through class performance, not based on past proficiencies demonstrated in grades or standardized tests. Throughout the web site, you'll find examples of differentiated course materials and assignments that assist struggling students (e.g. inference forms) to learn the core material, and several examples of special projects completed by advanced students (e.g. Zombie Calculator). Advanced students serve as group leaders and tutors.
Excel has tremendous potential as a scaffold for weaker math students. I have only just begun to tap these unexpected pedagogical prospects. Excel assists students who have difficulties completing complex mathematical tabulations. For instance, a student who regularly makes mistakes in the conversion of percentages to decimals can still successfully execute statistical calculations because Excel allows them to input “5%” without conversion to decimal form (.05) which would be required for a calculator execution of these same statistical tabulations. With this type of support, mistakes are far more likely to isolate a student’s lack of understanding of statistical concepts than their inconsistent conversion of decimals.