Super Crunchers

If you have read 'Freakonomics', a book I had blogged about a few months ago, you will also find this book equally interesting.

Ian Ayres, the author of Super Crunchers, is a Professor both in the Law School and the School of Management at Yale University.

This is a book about 'Statistics', about how we can use statistics to extract hidden information from large data sets.

In general the book is about Random Theory, Randomised Trials and Regression Tests to make predictions on outcome to our decision-making process. Although these are 'big words' ( especially for people like me who is neither a mathematician nor a stastitician), the author has made the book so readable and interesting. ( and, mind you, the author himself is not a mathematician but a lawyer)

Find out how ( with the advent of evidence-based medicine) these statistical tests have challenged the accuracy of clinical decision based from our experience and intuition. In fact, the ideas for the scripts of the famous TV series "House" came out of the debate whether evidence-based medicine is superior to traditional clinical decision making process!

Find out how a mathematical formula can predict, years in advance, which wines will fetch higher prices at the auction, even before the wine gurus like Robert Parker will have his first chance to sniff, gaze and sip the vintages!

I wish some one with 'numbers-crunching skills' can look at the study conducted by UPSI on the outcome of the "Teaching of Maths and Science in English" and tell me if their conclusions are valid!

On another note, Chapter 7 of the book drew my attention to the debate on teaching methodology. 'Project Follow Through' initiated by Lyndon Johnson in 1967, looked at the impact of 17 teaching methods and the results from this 'super crunching' exercise showed that the teaching method of "Direct Instruction (DI)" produced best scores in reading, maths, spelling and language. And not only that, the kids also did better when they were asked questions that require higher-order thinking!

This chapter gave a clear decription of what the class using the DI method is like which you may also view in Micheal Moore's movie ' Fahrenheit 9/11' in the class-room scene where Mr Bush was being told that 'America is under attack!'

I now wonder if the success of Chinese medium schools in Malaysia in their teaching of Mathematics is because they have incorporated in their method elements of 'Direct Instruction'.