Jim Reintjes Kansas State Collegian New program encourages students' minds to wander K-State students enrolled in Statistics 320 and 330 are encouraged to let their minds wander while in class. A new program in the statistics department lets students visit other planets via the World Wide Web. They get to pick and choose variables and populations that they want to study from. They can use it to analyze and to find the answer to the problem they are working on at the time. The non-traditional classroom is in Dickens 206.
Students sit around an eight-sided table with two computers per student.
Ballou said they began the heavy-duty work for the classroom in fall 1998. We had a pilot class in the fall of 1999, and it was Statistics 330. This fall, Statistics 320 and 330 are taught in this studio class environment. Ballou said the instructors like the classroom setting and most students like it although it might take some time for them to get used to it. It's the students who it takes a little getting used to, but I think most students really favor it.