Luke Fostvedt

The American Educational Research Association had the annual meeting in San Francisco last weekend drawing around 15,000 participants from around the world. I was accepted to present some research from the SWH project regarding the effect of the implementation quality of the SWH on student performance. The presentation went well with roughly 75 people attending the session at 8am on sunday morning. There was quite a bit of interest in the topic and methodology after presentation.

The SWH team had four presentations displaying many of the good results we have been seeing due to the inquiry based approach to teaching science that has been employed in all these elementary schools across Iowa. Marcia was presenting results regarding increases in critical thinking and a couple of Brian Hand’s post docs also had presentations. I think everyone enjoyed the great weather in the city and the plethora of good food. I know …

Last weekend the family went out to Utah to have an early celebration of our mom’s upcoming 50th birthday. What better way to celebrate than two great days of (injury free?) skiing and snowboarding. Local skier Karl Fostvedt showed us some of the best Utah skiing and made us prove we weren’t gapers by testing our skills on the difficult, double black diamond slopes. We had a perfect bluebird day on Saturday up at Snowbird and an off and on day up at Park City on Sunday.…

To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of. – Sir R.A. Fisher (1938)

All models are wrong, but some are useful. – George Box

Statisticians, like artists, have the bad habit of falling in love with their models. – George Box

The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see. – John Tukey

Data is the sword of the 21st century, those who wield it well, the Samurai. – Jonathan Rosenberg

Those who ignore Statistics are condemned to reinvent it. – Brad Efron

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain

My thesis is simply this: probability does not …

Freezing rain occurs almost every year here in Iowa. However it isn’t every year that the sidewalks and roads completely ice over. This is both entertaining and dangerous to attempt to walk up a sidewalk with any significant slope. Unfortunately the longest sloped paths I knew of were not icy enough, but we found some formidable sidewalks that were nearly unwalkable. The following video highlights Our attempts to walk the sidewalks near our apartment.

I had planned to drive to school to do some work, but when I noticed the solid layer of ice on the car, I gave up on driving to school. Felix and I then investigated the sidewalk situation as seen in the video above.…

Searching through the old family photos had revealed some timeless photos. Each of the photos and the stories that accompany them have brought many nostalgic smiles and laughs. Below are some of the most classic photos of myself. There are countless others of my siblings that only get more enjoyable with time.…