This repo contains slides and demo materials for the talk titled "Using R, RStudio, and Docker for introductory statistics" at useR 2015 in Aalborg, Denmark.

If you want to find out more details about the Docker setup, shoot me an email.

TL;DR

Why R?

Why / why not R?

• Why? Unlike many software designed specifically for intro stat courses, R is
  • free & open source,
  • powerful & flexible, and
  • very importantly relevant beyond the intro stat classroom
• Why not R?
  • teaching programming in addition to stats concepts is challenging:
    • option 1: don't do any hands on data analysis -> terrible idea / disservice to students + faculty
    • option 2: use a grad-and-drop type tool -> end up with drag-and-drop instruction hell
    • moral: there's a learning curve for any software, if you're going to have your students climb up some hill, make it worthwhile beyond just that one class
  • command line is intimidating: RStudio not so intimidating

How R?

• Technical:
  • Short story: use RStudio, in the browser, avoid local installation for seamless entry and minimized frustration (by students + faculty)
  • Each RStudio session lives in a Docker container, containers persist for a semester (or more if you like)
  • See architecture slide in presentation for implementation details
• Pedagogical:
  • Reproducibility is the goal, and the tool for teaching R
  • Literate programming in R with RMarkdown
  • Scaffolding: Start with very hand-holdy templates, slowly take away the support, with end of semester goal of fully reproducible data analysis projects

Resources:

• GitHub repo for Docker implementation at duke - updates to the repo forthcoming
• OpenIntro for R labs
• My github repo for specific course details + materials for Sta 101 at Duke. Course repos usually start with sta101_ or sta104_, latter is the online version of the course. Each semester is a new repo, there's lots of duplication between semesters.