Sounds like a good idea to me. I work at a large flagship state school, and we see a number of underprepared students admitted. The problem is not so much that we can't teach them what they need to catch up, it's that they are given unrealistic expectations. The College of Arts and Sciences is making a big push to have everyone finish in 4 years, but this is very unrealistic for these underprepared students. A program where everyone expects them to take an extra year would reset the expectations to a realistic level and, in my opinion, probably improve performance.

By the way, "underprepared" often includes students who have, for example, passed pre-calculus, but did not learn the material and thus struggle when I see them in calculus. It's well established that the best predictor of success in calculus is algebra/pre-calculus skills, so giving them a chance to sharpen these skills with less time pressure would be beneficial to the student.

Probably (no pun intended) because one really needs (some) calculus to understand things like continuous probability distributions and the Central Limit Theorem.

Professors don't reject technology in general. They reject any particular classroom approach that doesn't fit their needs, whether it is technological or not. The latest fad is Blackboard and other course management systems. They are largely a complete waste of time. It is easier for me to use my rudimentary HTML skills to hack up a webpage with links to syllabi, assignments, etc.

The one technology I am learning to like is the clickers. One doesn't learn mathematics by watching the professor, one learns it by doing mathematics. The clickers allow me to force my large lecture to work problems in class. It is also helpful in diagnosing their issues when they are too shy/reluctant/embarrassed to ask questions. Automated homework (e.g. WebAssign) is okay; it's kind of lousy for the students, but easy for me to assign/grade.

As far as comments above about lazy professors just wanting to research and not wanting to teach, our priorities are set by the administration. They will tell us that we are evaluated 50% teaching/50% research, but they are not being honest (with us or themselves). Essentially, if you can speak English and aren't just naturally terrible at teaching, you are better served (from a tenure/promotion perspective) minimizing time spent on teaching so you can maximize the time spent on research. When students demand more focus on teaching, administration will adjust their priorities, but it's hardly the professors who set the rules of the game.

Yes, IAAP (of mathematics) at a large research university.

On the contrary, I see no reason whatsoever to assume you and your friends are somehow a representative sample of the population as a whole. Think about your parents, and their friends, for example. Or your grandparents, etc.

The university where I work does not allow the departments to supply coffee. However, they have a program where you buy a reusable cup, and any dining location (even Starbucks) on campus fills it for $0.55 . By my nearest calculation, that's about how much it's costing me to buy decent coffee beans and brew at home. So while I still bring a cup from home in the morning, the cheap coffee has me heading out for another cup in the afternoon, thus doubling my daily coffee consumption. If the department instead provided coffee, it would most likely be of sufficiently poor quality that I would pass on it anyways. So I almost feel that having not-free coffee is causing me to drink more. As an added benefit, it also gets me out of the office for a short walk every afternoon.

There are a large number of people out there who think the iPhone is the only smartphone. So when they buy a smartphone, they buy an iPhone and love it, because the only thing they compare it too is their old clamshell phone. So naturally, they are very enthusiastic about it.

Actually, on a larger level my hypothesis is that Apple products work great for anyone who does not question the arbitrary limitations put on the software by Apple in the name of "ease of use". They just assume that "phones can't do that" or "computers don't do that" and are happy; whereas if you know a little bit about how much effort it would be to have that feature, and that it's omitted solely to simplify (i.e. dumb things down), it is immensely frustrating (although it seems once one reaches Apple Guru level, all the workarounds are second nature and these things are once again painless). In short, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. I say this at someone who uses Linux/Android at home, but OSX/iOS at work.

I find the tone of this discussion quite interesting. The general theme seems to be that the price in Australia is higher than The One True And Just Price, and how dare these evil companies take advantage of the Australians. However, I'd wager there is not this level of disgust when a company sells something to some people for a price less than The One True And Just Price (e.g. books in India, coupons at the grocery store, etc.). It seems like people's perception plays the largest role in whether they find price stratification objectionable--if a company "starts" from a price, and offers lower prices to some people, then it's okay, but if they "start" from a given price and insist on higher prices from certain people, then this is outrageous, despite being the same behavior.

Stephenson has another book, Anathem, that is quite good.

The quotes in the headline should be around 'Journal' rather than open access. The point is not that they claim to be open access but are not; they claim to be a peer reviewed journal and are not (while it may have been reviewed, any reviewer who did not see through the nonsense could not credibly be called a 'peer' of a working mathematician).

Actually, St. Louis is home to a budding craft beer scene with over 20 breweries in the area.

Stouts and porters are ales.

With my students, the answer is face to face. With colleagues/collaborators, it is definitely email.

My wife, who has chronic bronchitis stemming from when she had pertussis in college, would disagree with you.

Lots of bad advice in this thread. As a fellow mathematician who has taught intro stats before, and am currently teaching it (at a large research university) again this summer, here is my take: 1) Be prepared for the fact that many will not have taken a math class in many years, some 5 or more. They will recall little from their previous math classes other than intuition. Their arithmetic skills are poor. Be sure you are evaluating them on their understanding of the stats material, and be forgiving of arithmetic errors 2) They will be heterogeneous. Some will prefer abstract formulae, others will want to see things in words. Give both. Some will like to read the book, others will like lectures. I am linking to relevant Khan Academy videos on my website along with the date of the lecture they go along with. Anything you can do to come at things from various angles will increase the proportion of the class that understands it. 3) Try and explain the big picture. I am often motivating things with social science "experiments", or medical experiments. Find out what kinds of examples click with your students, and use those. While their arithmetic skills are often abysmal, they generally grasp quite readily the major ideas, how one should apply them, and when. They just get lost a bit in details. 4) Don't get bogged down teaching too much probability. It's an easy trap to fall in to. 5) Have fun. I've found teaching this course to be more work, but rewarding. A lot of these students have a near phobia of anything math, it's nice to see things clicking for them and them grasping the big ideas, if not the specific computations. Okay, back to writing tomorrow's lecture... P.S. Neither math nor statistics are "natural science", much less any kind of science.

Article is short on details, but at least they include a link to the paper on the arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0403069