When asked what the most fundamental concept is in Statistics many teachers would respond that it is "variability." Measuring and predicting variability is what Statistics is all about. Yet, we often don't recognize variability in the very place where it matters most! When we discuss "the best way to teach Statistics" it implies that there is one way that is best for all students to learn and all teachers to teach. But students have a wide range of learning styles, and what works well for some students is completely inappropriate for others. We have all observed in ourselves and our colleagues that what works well for some teachers does not work for others. In short, we preach variability but often we don't teach as if it exists. In this talk I will discuss student and teacher variability and how we might incorporate them into teaching Statistics.

Jessica Utts is a Professor of Statistics at the University of California at Davis. She is the author of Seeing Through Statistics (3^rd edition, 2005) and the co-author with Robert Heckard of Mind On Statistics (3^rd edition, 2006) and Statistical Ideas and Methods (2006), all published by Duxbury Press. Jessica has been active in the statistics education community at the high school and college level. For six years she served as a member of the Advanced Placement Statistics Development Committee, half of that time as Chair. She is the 2006 Chair-Elect and 2007 Chair of the ASA Section on Statistical Education and served on the ASA GAISE College Report panel. She is the recipient of the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award and the Magnar Ronning Award for Teaching Excellence, both at the University of California, Davis. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Beyond statistics education Jessica's major contributions have been in applying statistics to a variety of disciplines, most notably to parapsychology, the laboratory study of psychic phenomena. She has appeared on numerous television shows, including Larry King Live, ABC Nightline, CNN Morning News and 20/20, and in a documentary included on the DVD with the movie "Suspect Zero."