Webinars

In this March edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the recent article Studying the Opportunities Provided by an Applied High School Mathematics Course: Explorations in Data Science. The authors report on a multi-method study of a high school course in data science, finding that students who take data science take more mathematics courses than those who do not, there are more under-represented students in data science than is typical for other advanced mathematics courses; that the students who take data science are more positive about a future in STEM and they tend to be older. Analysis of writing from the students shows that students are very positive about the course, appreciating the relevance of the content, the opportunity to investigate ideas, the chance to learn challenging, applied content, and the opportunity to think creatively. In an assessment of data and functions given to students in data science and Algebra 2 courses, the students in data science scored at significantly higher levels.Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2333735

In this February edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the recent article Generative AI for Data Science 101: Coding Without Learning To Code. Should one teach coding in a required introductory statistics and data science class for non-major students? Many professors advise against it, considering it a distraction from the important and challenging statistical topics that need to be covered. By contrast, other professors argue that the ability to interact flexibly with data will inspire students with a lasting love of the subject and a continued commitment to the material beyond the introductory course. With the release of large language models that write code, the authors saw an opportunity for a middle ground, which they tried in Fall 2023 in a required introductory data science course in their school’s full-time MBA program. In this webinar, the authors share their experience teaching students how to write English prompts to the artificial intelligence tool GitHub Copilot that could be turned into R code and executed.Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2432397  

In this January edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the 2024 article Red Light Reaction – A Statistics Project with Real Life Application. The presenters describe a hands-on project in which students collect data on the impact of distracted driving on driver reaction time. Initially they do this in class via a virtual driving applet, using themselves and fellow students as test subjects. Different applet versions simulate driving with and without distraction and measure the time it takes to apply brakes after the red brake lights of the car ahead appear. Students use the collected data to practice a range of statistical techniques, such as assessing data for outliers, creating a hypothesis to be tested, performing an appropriate test, and then translating their results to determine a safe driving distance. In the second part of the project, students work in groups outside of class. Each group recruits a category of test subjects (e.g., athletes, video gamers, STEM majors) of their choosing, collects data, and performs statistical analysis. Finally, students develop hypotheses as to whether different categories of drivers have better or worse reaction times, collect additional relevant data, and perform the appropriate statistical test.Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2407781  

In this December edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the 2024 article Using Grayscale Photos to Introduce High School Statistics Teachers to Reasoning with Digital Image Data. Statistics teaching at the high school level needs modernizing to include digital sources of data that students interact with every day. Algorithmic modeling approaches are recommended, as they can support the teaching of data science and computational thinking. Research is needed about the design of tasks that support high school statistics teachers to learn new statistical and computational approaches such as digital image analysis and classification models. Using their design framework, the authors describe construction of a task that introduces classification modeling using grayscale digital images. The task was implemented within a teaching experiment involving six high school statistics teachers. Their findings from this exploratory study indicated that the task design seemed to support statistical and computational thinking practices related to classification modeling and digital image data. Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2351570  

In this November edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the 2024 article Simulation-Based Inference: Random Sampling vs. Random Assignment? What Instructors Should Know. “Simulation-based inference” is often considered a pedagogical strategy for helping students develop inferential reasoning, for example, giving them a visual and concrete reference for deciding whether the observed statistic is unlikely to happen by chance alone when the null hypothesis is true. In this webinar, the presenters highlight for teachers some implications of different simulation strategies when analyzing two variables. In particular, does it matter whether the simulation models random sampling or random assignment? They present examples from comparing two means and simple linear regression, highlighting the impact on the standard deviation of the null distribution. They also highlight some possible extensions that simulation-based inference easily allows. Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2333736  

In this October edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the 2024 article Philosophy within Data Science Ethics Courses. There is wide agreement that ethical considerations are a valuable aspect of a data science curriculum, and to that end, many data science programs offer courses in data science ethics. There are not always, however, explicit connections between data science ethics and the centuries-old work on ethics within the discipline of philosophy. Here, the speakers present a framework for bringing together key data science practices with ethics topics. The ethics topics were collated from sixteen data science ethics courses with public-facing syllabi and reading lists. The speakers encourage individuals who are teaching data science ethics to engage with the philosophical literature and its connection to current data science practices, which are rife with potentially morally charged decision points. Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2394542   

In this September edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the 2024 article What They Remember May Not Be What They Understand: A Study of Mnemonic Recall and Performance by Introductory Statistics Students. The speakers will discuss a large-scale (n = 1323) survey of mnemonic recall, self-reported familiarity, cued explanation, and application by introductory statistics students that was conducted at a large research university in the southeastern United States. The students were presented 14 mnemonics during the fall 2017 term. Different nonoverlapping cohorts of students were asked at different time points to complete a survey about mnemonic use. At each time point, the students were asked to recall any mnemonic that they remembered, explain the mnemonic when cued, self-report their degree of familiarity, and apply the mnemonic. Of the 14 mnemonics, acronym-type mnemonics were recalled more frequently, but longer phrase-type mnemonics were explained and applied more often. These findings suggest that instructors should provide scaffolding to move a student from recalling a mnemonic to using a mnemonic toward successful completion of the statistics problem at hand. Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2334905 

In 2022, the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education (JSDSE) instituted augmented requirements for authors to post deidentified data and code underlying their papers. These changes were prompted by an increased focus on reproducibility and open science, and a recent review of data availability practices noted that "such policies help increase the reproducibility of the published literature, as well as make a larger body of data available for reuse and re-analysis" (PLOS ONE, 2024). In this talk, Nicholas Horton and Sara Stoudt present their recent editorial for JSDSE, discussing the motivation and process for sharing deidentified data and code. Because institution, environment, and students differ across readers of the journal, it is especially important to facilitate the transfer of a journal article's findings to new contexts. This process may require digging into more of the details, including the deidentified data and code. The presenters will present a review of why the requirements for code and data sharing were instituted, summarize ongoing trends and developments in open science, discuss options for data and code sharing, and share advice for authors. Article Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26939169.2024.2364737

In this June edition of the JSDSE/CAUSE webinar series, we highlight the 2024 article The Teaching of Introductory Statistics: Results of a National Survey. The authors describe their use of the updated Statistics Teaching Inventory (STI) to examine the current state of the curricular and instructional practices being used by U.S.-based, college-level introductory statistics instructors. They explore the extent to which instructors report that their introductory statistics courses are aligned with recommended practices as outlined by the 2016 GAISE College Report. Data were collected from a sample of college-level U.S.-based, college-level introductory statistics instructors. Results based on 228 usable responses indicated that instructors, by-and-large, tended to be following the GAISE recommendations, especially related to content. However, courses may not yet be aligned with newer content recommendations (e.g., provide students opportunities to work with multivariate data), and there is still a large percentage of instructors that are not embracing student-oriented pedagogies and assessment methods.

This webinar shares experiences and guidance for development of assessment tasks and scoring rubrics associated with open-ended, free response tasks.  The session also draws comparisons between implications when the assessment is used in a classroom vs research context.  Acknowledgment: this webinar was prepared and delivered with the support of NSF Project CLASSIFIES (DUE: IUSE #2236150).  Disclaimer: AP® is a trademark registered by College Board, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse this presentation or Iowa State University’s events, programs, etc