Online Statistics Teaching with R using `learnr interactive lessons - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• Dr. Amira Elayouty and Dr. Mitchum Bock July 2020

Owing a debt of gratitude to Dr. Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel and the gang at RStudio

Online Statistics Teaching with R

using `learnr’ interactive lessons and tutorials

Teaching Statistics with

Level 1 “Introductory Statistics”

• Optional course (not a prerequisite)
• > 50% DON’T go on to Honours Stats
• We don’t expect them to write R code (but

encourage them to explore!)

Level M “Data Analysis Skills”

• Compulsory taught MSc course
• Covers a wide range of statistical

techniques from other courses with emphasis on application

• Essential that they can write R code

efficiently and reproducibly

Some challenges to remote teaching with

Students:

• have different types of machines with different operating systems;
• need to install R, RStudio and packages in R;
• may not have any/limited background in R or RStudio.

WE, as educators, want to…

• engage students in active learning (especially remotely);
• enable students to apply/test their understanding;
• guide the student towards effective R code;

“Not all R error and warning messages are useful; especially for beginners”

• provide the student with useful and meaningful feedback;
• reduce dependency on personal help by encouraging independent learning.

Some challenges to remote teaching with

Introductory Statistics

4 x 2hrs computing labs

Taught MSc Course

10 x 2hrs computing labs

learnr gradethis

Learnr

https://rstudio.github.io/learnr/

• learnr is an R package that easily turn Rmarkdown documents into interactive tutorials.
• learnr is on CRAN which can be installed using:

install.packages(“learnr”)

• learnr tutorials can include:

Narrative, figures, illustrations, and equations. Code exercises (R code chunks that users can edit and execute directly). Quiz questions. Videos (YouTube & Vimeo). Interactive Shiny components.

https://rstudio.github.io/learnr/

Learnr

• learnr is an R package that easily turn Rmarkdown documents into interactive tutorials.
• learnr is on CRAN which can be installed using:

install.packages(“learnr”)

• learnr tutorials can include:

Narrative, figures, illustrations, and equations. Code exercises (R code chunks that users can edit and execute directly). Quiz questions. Videos (YouTube & Vimeo). Interactive Shiny components.

Just like R markdown, it starts with a YAML You can further customise the style/font of the learnr tutorial.

to render figures with captions for "Continue" buttons between subsections to allow skipping exercises

https://rstudio.github.io/learnr/

narrative code console narrative code console

Code exercise Multiple choice question

gradethis

• gradethis pairs with the learnr package; It provides multiple methods to grade

learnr exercises: grade_result(): checks the final result of exercise code grade_conditions(): checks code against a set of specified conditions grade_code(): checks code against a solution code

• gradethis is not on CRAN yes but can be installed from Github with:

remotes::install_github(“rstudio-education/gradethis”)

https://rdrr.io/github/rstudio-education/gradethis

In the setup chunk,

Tips:

• Think of what may students get wrong & write test cases for with useful guidance to success.
• Write a generic message for all other possible mistakes.
• More grading options/functions: grade_code(), grade_Conditions().
• More details on those functions are available in gradethis::gradethis_demo()

Sharing the lesson with students

• Deploy on:

local shiny server of the school/organisation (2018, 2019) - requires IT support shinyapps.io (2020) - Not free for large number of students

Note: To publish a tutorial with gradethis; you need to run devtools::install_github(“rstudio/packrat”) in your console first

• You can also distribute the learnr tutorial in R package (compatible with the latest version of RStudio, for

more details see https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/learnr/vignettes/shinyapps-publishing.html

• Step by step publishing instructions are at https://rstudio.github.io/learnr/publishing.html

Lessons learned …

• Make the tutorial experience feel more like a self explanatory story.
• Write robust code and checks & verify the correctness of these tests.
• Make static .pdf versions of the tutorial/lesson available.
• Make a static .pdf file with solutions available after class.

• Environmental case study lab (University of Glasgow)
• Introducing learnr
• learnr for remote teaching
• Introducing gradethis
• Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel's workshop on teaching with learnr

Thank you…