Description: This article explains the changes made to the Expanding Horizons Newsletter.

Description: Article describes best practices for teaching a course module that involves multiple parameters. A good example is hypothesis testing which requires consideration of the parameters, sample-size, population distribution, known variance and has as consequences whether a normal or t distribution should be used or whether non parametric methods are used. The articles recommends use of the Prime Implicant Normal Form as a means of teaching. It shows the superiority of this method over other forms such as heuristics, complete rules, or graduated approaches.

Description: This article discusses Jed Frees’ book in progress, “Regression Modeling with Actuarial and Financial Applications” which offers a synthesized introduction to regression and time series.

Description: A solicitation for letters to the editor of Expanding Horizons.

Description: A typical course has some "hard" parts. These "hard" parts are the places where weaker students begin to fail, lose interest, and give up. The paper introduces a metric by which to evaluate each course topic. High metric values indicate "hard parts" of courses. The paper recommends spending more course time on hard parts and less course time on easy parts. The paper also recommends using disclosure: Tell students - this part of the course is "hard" and they may feel uncomfortable which is why more time is being spent on it." This approach to hard parts works! Failure rates are significantly reduced, while retention, satisfaction, and student scores improve.

Description: Request for letters to the editor of the Expanding Horizons section.

Description: Announcement of the ARC Graduate Student winners from the 2010 conference at Simon Fraser University.

Description: This article announces the top five graduate student presentations from the 44th Actuarial Research Conference in 2009.

Description: The article discusses the use of the keyword strategy in teaching. The literature with a negative view of keywords is reviewed and responded to by advocating keywords with multiple meanings supplemented with relevant instructional guidance. Numerous examples are presented from the SOA preliminary exams. Additionally, advanced use of keywords to problems not having them are presented.