Course Schedule
STAT 184 - Summer 2026
This schedule is tentative and subject to change. Substantive changes will be announced in class and on Canvas. Class meets Monday through Friday, 9:35 - 10:50 a.m., May 18 - June 26, 2026.
No class: Monday May 25 (Memorial Day) · Friday June 19 (Juneteenth).
Reading the table: DC = Data Computing (Kaplan & Beckman), free at https://dtkaplan.github.io/DataComputingEbook/. R4DS = R for Data Science (Wickham, Çetinkaya-Rundel, Grolemund), free at https://r4ds.hadley.nz. Reading the relevant chapter before class on Perusall is required; in-class activities assume you’ve done the reading.
Week 1 — Foundations (May 18 - 22)
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon May 18 | Course intro · what tidy data is · RStudio tour | DC §1.1–1.5 | — |
| Tue May 19 | R, RStudio, and the console · vectors · data types | DC §2.1–2.8 | — |
| Wed May 20 | Functions, packages, the tidyverse · objects | DC §3.1–3.5 | HW 0: Setup |
| Thu May 21 | Quarto basics · writing reproducible documents | DC §4.1–4.7 | — |
| Fri May 22 | Quiz 1 · the pipe and chaining syntax | DC §3.6 R4DS §28 | HW 1: Basic R & Plots · Quiz 1 (in class) |
Week 2 — Graphics (May 25 - 29)
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon May 25 | No class - Memorial Day | — | — |
| Tue May 26 | Data frames · tibbles · grammar of graphics | DC §5.1–5.6 | — |
| Wed May 27 | ggplot2 basics · aesthetics · geoms | DC §6.1–6.5 | — |
| Thu May 28 | Multivariable graphics · facets · scales | DC §8.1–8.3 | — |
| Fri May 29 | Quiz 2 · AI coding/critique activity | — | HW 2: Pipes, Plots & Reading Graphics · Quiz 2 (in class) |
Week 3 — Data Wrangling (June 1 - 5)
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon Jun 1 | Wrangling framework · summarise + group_by | DC §7.1–7.7 | — |
| Tue Jun 2 | select, filter, mutate, arrange | DC §10.1–10.6 | — |
| Wed Jun 3 | Putting it together: from messy CSV to summary table | (Review Ch 7, 10) | — |
| Thu Jun 4 | Reshaping: pivot_longer, pivot_wider |
DC §12.1 | Project: Team formation |
| Fri Jun 5 | Quiz 3 · Git/GitHub concepts + demo | DC §9.1–9.2 | Homework 3: Data Wrangling & Reshaping · Quiz 3 (in class) |
Weekend: Install GitHub Desktop or configure Git locally. By Monday Jun 8, your team should have a working repo with all members able to push.
Week 4 — Joins, Import, Exam (June 8 - 12)
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon Jun 8 | Joining tables: inner_join, left_join, anti-joins |
DC §11.1–11.3 | |
| Tue Jun 9 | Importing data: CSV, Excel, factors vs strings, cleaning | DC §16.1–16.2, 16.4–16.5 | — |
| Wed Jun 10 | Exam review · practice problems in class | — | — |
| Thu Jun 11 | EXAM (in-class, on paper, closed book) | — | — |
| Fri Jun 12 | Light day · web scraping & HTML tables | DC §16.3 | Project Checkpoint 1 (Due 6/14 11:59 p.m.) |
Week 5 — Functions, Iteration, & Strings (June 15 - 19)
Week 5 covers material that Data Computing doesn’t address in depth. Readings for Mon–Wed come from R for Data Science (free online).
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon Jun 15 | Writing functions in R | R4DS Ch 25 (Functions) | HW 4 |
| Tue Jun 16 | Control flow · if/else, for, while |
R4DS Ch 26 §26.1–26.3 | — |
| Wed Jun 17 | Vectorized operations · purrr::map |
R4DS Ch 26 §26.4–26.5 | — |
| Thu Jun 18 | Strings, dates, and regex | DC §17.1–17.2 | Project oral check-in #1 (during class) |
| Fri Jun 19 | No class - Juneteenth · Quiz 4 rescheduled to Mon Jun 22 | — | HW 5 |
Week 6 — Special Topics & Project (June 22 - 26)
| Date | Topic | Read before class | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon Jun 22 | Clustering & decision trees | DC §18.2–18.3 | Quiz 4 (in class) |
| Tue Jun 23 | Using R with LLMs | — | — |
| Wed Jun 24 | Case study: bad science & misleading claims | — | Project Checkpoint 2 |
| Thu Jun 25 | Project work day · oral check-in #2 (final walkthrough) | — | — |
| Fri Jun 26 | Quiz 6 · short project presentations · course wrap-up | — | Quiz 6 (in class) · Final project report due 11:59 p.m. |
Submission guide
| Item | Format | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Readings | Reading/Discussion | Perusall (Linked on Canvas) |
| Homework | Quarto rendered to PDF or HTML | Canvas |
| Quizzes / Exam | Paper | In class |
| In-class activities | Paper or Canvas | In class or end-of-day Canvas |
| Project | Quarto rendered to PDF + GitHub repo | Canvas |
Sources
- DC = Kaplan, D. & Beckman, M. (2021). Data Computing (2nd ed.). https://dtkaplan.github.io/DataComputingEbook/
- R4DS = Wickham, H., Çetinkaya-Rundel, M., & Grolemund, G. (2023). R for Data Science (2nd ed.). https://r4ds.hadley.nz