Week 4 - Conditional Probability

Monday 10:00 - 10:50

• Monty Hall Problem activity:
  • Spend 5/10 minutes explaining the concept of the game show to the class.
  • Split the class into pairs. One of each pair becomes the ‘host’, and the other becomes the ‘contestant’.
  • They will play the Monty Hall game 10 times (using cardboard cups as doors, coloured card as cars/goats).
  • For each round they record the outcome (stick / swap, car / goat).
  • Ask class what was the best strategy? (leave as open discussion)
  • Collect every pair’s results, determine the class’ overall success rate when sticking and when swapping.
  • Ask the class again what was the best strategy? Have a discussion around why (boxes, three scenarios, etc.).
  • Gradually introduce concept that knowledge can change probabilities. Independence / dependence of events (use example playing cards with and without a joker), and conditional probabiity.

Tuesday 09:00 - 10:50

• Work on tutorial sheet 3, conditional probability.
• ‘Open’ group question: “Each year 1 in 20,000 people die in a road accident in Britain, what’s the probability of dying in a road accident before turning a hundred years old?” (Give time to discuss approaches, assumptions, missing information. Can finish by discussing ‘my’ solution: blog post)