Envisioning a Future K-12 Teacher of Statistics

Let's think together

about how a teacher can take a simple context into a rich learning opportunity.

When you hear the name Jane,

what or whom do you think of?

Jane Fonda

fitness guru?

Jane Seymour

actress?

or

3rd wife of King Henry VIII?

G.I. Jane

1996 movie with Demi Moore?

Lady Jane

1966 song by the Rolling Stones?

Jane Porter

You know, Tarzan's Jane

Jane's Addiction

1980-90's rock band?

Jane Doe

Question:

If you were to meet a female named Jane, What is your best guess at how old she would be?

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTE2NzQ5MzkzODc

What opportunities arose by giving students an open

question and asking them to bring evidence?

Let's imagine meeting a Jane as a repeatable event. Can we build a model and simulate randomly meeting a Jane from this distribution?

Teacher's using dynamic statistical software

Only 40% of teachers linked representations, typically between two representations, with only 29% using dynamic linking.

77% of teachers augmented their graphs

12 teachers (19%) examined a subset of the data.

Teachers working on broad questions (60%) used significantly more attributes from the data set (p=0.00096), and had a higher mean number of cycles (p=0.031), and added significantly more augmentations of all types to their graphs (p=0.0008).

Positive evidence that teachers can engage in EDA and take advantage of representational features and actions—but do not take advantage of linking among representations

• Use open/broad questions
• Use contexts that matter and that arise from their concerns/interests
• Use technology tools that afford transnumerative actions with data
• Focus on building models and simulations
• Engage in entire cycle of statistical investigation: starting with how to ask good statistical questions that invite exploratory data analysis!
• Build evidence-based arguments

• Help design experiences for teachers of statistics
• Question the "Common" wisdom and push teachers and students to go beyond the core to data sets with more variables and tools with more advanced visualization techniques

Envisioning the Future

Teacher of K-12 Statistics

Age Distribution in US

Common Core Mathematical Practices

So What is Expected of Students in the Common Core?

Maybe in 2013 and beyond....

Image from http://www.insidemathematics.org/index.php/commmon-core-math-intro

National Attention to Statistics in K-12

1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards, NCTM

2000 Principles and Standards, NCTM

2001 Mathematical Education of Teachers, CBMS

2007 GAISE K-12 report, ASA

2010 Common Core State Mathematics Standards

2012 Mathematical Education of Teachers II, CBMS

Recommendations from the report on the

Mathematical Education of Teachers II

TECHNOLOGY

Opportunities to Collaborate

REAL DATA

• Introductory Statistics course that emphasizes:
• all stages of a statistical investigation
• exploratory data analysis
• introduction to the use of randomization and simulation in data production and inferential reasoning;
• inference for means and proportions and differences of means or proportions, (including notions of p-value and margin of error); and
• introduction to probability from a relative frequency perspective, including additive and multiplicative rules, conditional probability and independence.

Elementary Education majors need experiences with data collection and analysis, with an emphasis on data from repeated measurement contexts.

Middle grade teachers need a modern introductory course and then a course that focuses deeply on content within middle school.

ACTIVE LEARNING

High School teachers need a modern introductory course, and then a second course that builds strong understandings of more advanced topics of study designs, sampling, regression, transformation of data, randomization, categorical data analysis, and one-way analysis of variance.

Hollylynne Stohl Lee

North Carolina State University