See Books & Online Resources Lists for the readings & practice materials.
The reading materials are not mandatory but it is encouraged.
The “Reading” column in the table below contains page numbers
(Pg.) or chapters (ch.) on which it refers to a label in the Books &
Online Resources List. For example “Pg. 1-5 [S]” refers to pages 1-5 of
the first item in the list, which is the textbook titled “Probability,
Statistics, and Data: A Fresh Approach Using R”.
| Week | Day | Topic | Worksheet | Homework | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tu 8/27 | Introduction and Orientation to Probability & Statistics |
Review Set Theory & Calculus | - | Syllabus |
| Th 8/29 | Basic Definition of Probability | Computing Probabilities and Random Sampling | - | Sect. 1.1-1.3 [B] | |
| 2 | Tu 9/3 | Counting and Arranging | Introduce the Basics of Combinatorics | - | Sect. 1.4-1.5 [B] |
| Th 9/5 | General Definition of Probability | Understand the Properties of Probability | - | Sect. 1.6 [B] | |
| 3 | Tu 9/10 | Conditional Probability | Think Conditionally | - | Sect. 2.1-2.2 [B] |
| Th 9/12 | Baye’s Theorem, & The Law of Total Probability |
Update Conditional Probabilities | Assigned: Homework 1 | Sect. 2.3-2.4 [B] | |
| 4 | Tu 9/17 | Random Variables & Probability Functions |
Describe a Random Variable | - | Sect. 3.1 [B] |
| Th 9/19 | Expectation & The Law of Large Numbers |
Compute the Expected Value | - | Sect. 4.1-4.3 [B] | |
| 5 | Tu 9/24 | Discrete Random Variables & Probability Mass Functions |
Create Probability Mass Functions | - | Sect. 3.2-3.3 [B] |
| Th 9/26 | Discrete Probability Distributions | Understand Known Discrete Probability Distributions | Assigned: Homework 2 | Sect. 3.4-3.6 [B] | |
| 6 | Tu 10/1 | Cancelled | - | - | - |
| Th 10/3 | Functions of Random Variables & Variance of Discrete Random Variables |
Determine Functions of Random Variables and their Probabilities & Compute the Variance | - | Sect. 4.4-4.6 [B] | |
| 7 | Tu 10/8 | Review | Exam 1 Examples | - | Exam 1 Topics |
| Th 10/10 | Midterm Exam | - | - | - | |
| 8 | Tu 10/15 | Fall Vacation | - | - | - |
| Th 10/17 | Fall Vacation | - | - | - | |
| 9 | Tu 10/22 | Continuous Random Variables & Probability Density Functions |
Create Probability Density functions | - | Sect. 5.1-5.3 [B] |
| Th 10/24 | Continuous Probability Distributions | Understand Known Continuous Probability Distributions | - | Sect. 5.4-5.6 [B] | |
| 10 | Tu 10/29 | Continued from 10/24 | - | - | - |
| Th 10/31 | Expectation and Variance of Continuous Random Variables | Compute the Expectation | - | Sect. 6.1-6.2 [B] | |
| 11 | Tu 11/5 | Continued from 10/31 | - | - | - |
| Th 11/7 | Cancelled | - | Assigned: Homework 3 | - | |
| 12 | Tu 11/12 | Moment Generating Functions | Determine the Moments | - | Sect. 6.3-6.5 [B] |
| Th 11/14 | Joint and Marginal Distributions | Compute the Marginals | - | Sect. 7.1-7.2 [B] | |
| 13 | Tu 11/19 | Continued from 11/14 | - | - | - |
| Th 11/21 | Covariance and Correlation | Determine the Covariance and Correlation | - | Sect. 7.3 [B] | |
| 14 | Tu 11/26 | Cancelled | - | - | - |
| Th 11/28 | Thanksgiving Vacation | - | - | - | |
| 15 | Tu 12/3 | Convolutions | TBA | - | Sect. 8.2 [B] |
| Th 12/5 | Review | Exam 2 Examples | - | Exam 2 Topics | |
| 16 | W 12/11 | Final Exam Section A | - | - | - |
[B] Blitzstein JK, Hwang J (2019). Introduction to probability, 2nd, edition. Chapman and Hall/CRC. http://probabilitybook.net/.
Amendment 7: In relation to Amendment 6, the recommended textbooks are reduced from two to one, and the extra book resources were removed.
Amendment 8: The “Textbooks” subsection label is removed under the “Books & Online Resources Lists”.