Visualizing Markov Processes

Researchers and educators have long been aware of the misconceptions prevalent in people’s probabilistic reasoning processes. Calls to reform the teaching of probability from a traditional and predominantly mathematical approach to include an emphasis on modelling using technology have been heeded by many. The purpose of this paper is to present our experiences of including an activity based on an interactive visualisation tool in the Markov processes module of a first-year probability course. Initial feedback suggests that the tool may support students’ understanding of the equilibrium distribution and points to certain aspects of the tool that may be beneficial. A targeted survey, to be administered in Semester 1, 2022, aims to provide more insight.