Who I Am

I’m a Lecturer in Public Policy teaching statistics and working on integrating technology and pedagogy. I also write about my experiences with both.

This site contains artifacts of digital modules that I have created and used as a Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Overview of Materials on this Site

Each of these modules aims to introduce learners to some set of statistical concepts, which is then used as the basis for an in-class session.

The goals of these materials are twofold. First, exposing learners to concepts before they step into the classroom allows them to spend as much or as little time as they need in order to get acquainted with the material. This makes it more likely that the class will be on the same page once our in-person session begins. Second, the learners respond to questions through the modules, which provides data on learner understanding that I review before class. Depending on how well the learners appear to understand the concepts in their responses, I can adjust the content of my in-class session to ensure that we spend time on the topics in most need of review or expansion.

Links to Modules

Note that the materials on this site are for demonstration only, and should not be used without my explicit permission. Please contact me if you are interested in using these materials in your own course.

The three audiences in the rightmost column can be thought of in the following way:

Master's of Public Policy (MPP): Learners who have had few or no prior courses in statistics, currently in their first semester of their graduate program.
Master's of Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID): Quantitatively-inclined learners who have had at least some prior coursework in statistics, currently in their first semester of their graduate program.
Civil Servants: Learners with 15-20 years of policy experience in their country's civil service, with varying degrees of background in quantitative methods.

Module	Description	Audience
Probability Rules	Fundamental rules of probability.	MPP
Distributions	Overview of discrete distributions.	MPP
Making Tradeoffs	Analytic tools related to making tradeoffs in policy scenarios.	MPP
Sampling Distributions	Sampling distributions and their construction.	MPA/ID
Statistical Power	Conceptual underpinnings of statistical power.	MPA/ID
ANOVA	Concept and mathematics of an equality of means hypothesis test.	MPA/ID
Multiple Linear Regression	Interpretation of coefficients in multiple regression.	MPA/ID
Dummy Variables	Interpretation of coefficients of dummy variables in multiple regression.	MPA/ID
Propensity Score Matching	Brief introduction to the theory of matching.	MPA/ID
Instrumental Variables	An introduction to instrumental variables.	MPP, MPA/ID
Descriptive Evidence, Part 1 and Part 2	Principles related to the interpretation and use of descriptive statistics.	Civil servants, MPP