Workshop Files

Download a zip archive containing all the files produced by the workshop attendees:

• Gulhan Alpargu, California State University, Fullerton
• Linda DeGuire, California State University, Long Beach
• Carol Langbort, San Francisco State University
• Brian Lim, California State University, Sacramento
• Anna OConnor, Murrieta Valley Unified School District
• Alex White, Texas State University, San Marcos
• Melody Yang, former biotech research scientist, future teacher

About the workshop

The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) in conjunction with St. Mary's College of California is sponsoring a workshop aimed at those who are preparing K-12 teachers of statistics, probability and data analysis. The two day workshop will explore current national, state and local standards for statistics, as well as the guidelines for the teaching of statistics approved by the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA).

Appropriate materials will be distributed. Also, resources available to teachers at all levels will be demonstrated and discussed. Participants will explore CAUSEweb.org, an online digital library of statistics teaching materials. Strategies for the active learning of statistics will be demonstrated and developed from the appropriate standard through to a final lesson plan. Throughout the workshop, participants will share their own experience in presenting statistics material to pre-service teachers at their home campuses, and what revisions, if any, will result from the workshop.

Workshop Agenda

Goals

• Communicate and discuss key ideas about statistics education with statisticians.
• Learn about California and national standards (NCTM, GAISE)
• Develop and e-publish lesson plans that meet standards
• Learn about electronic resources in statistics education
• Discover how the statistics education community can help you

Materials such as textbooks, research papers and workshop contents will be provided and can be taken away with you at the end of the workshop.

Day One

• Introductions
• Start with data: what are our attitudes about statistics? What do we know? Schar's attitude test: where are we? What do we know?
• How do mathematics and statistics compare? Motivating activities: histogram sorting and study design worksheet
• Meet Fathom: software for teaching and learning statistics
• Comparing standards at state and national levels: activity to compare homework problems from three popular textbooks;
• Positive and not-so positive examples of lesson plans
• Lesson Plans 1: select a topic and develop a lesson.
• Wine and Cheese reception
• Dinner

Day Two

• Fundamental results from statistics education research literature
• Resources: How online resources can help "punch up" your lesson plans.
• Submit your authored lesson plan to CAUSEWEB
• Discussion: What are your institution's achievements and challenges with teaching statistics to future and current teachers?
• Resources: conferences and organizations to help you with statistics education and for you to share and disseminate your achievements
• Exam development - an example
• What statistical software should we use? An exploration and comparison of several statistical packages (Fathom, Excel, Minitab, R)
• How can we produce teachers of statistics in line with the standards? Resources? Problems?
• Post evaluation of workshop

About the leaders

Rob Gould is director of the UCLA Center for Teaching Statistics in the Department of Statistics. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from U.C. San Diego in 1994, and since that time has been involved in curriculum development for AP Statistics teachers and exploring the use (and abuse) of technology to teach Statistics.

Brian Jersky is the new dean of science at St. Mary's College of California. Before that, he was chair of the Mathematics department at Sonoma State University. He is a statistician and is keenly interested in furthering knowledge of and interest in the subject. He looks forward to working with colleagues in the mathematics education area in this series of NSF-sponsored workshops.

Registration

The workshop for Math Education faculty will be held on the campus of St. Mary's College of California in Moraga, California. The workshop will be held on Thursday & Friday, July 27 & 28.

There is no registration fee or cost for materials. Lunch will be provided each day of the workshop to all participants as well as a wine and cheese reception at the conclusion of the first day of the workshop.

Lodging will be provided in campus dorm apartments for those participants who live further than 30 miles from the College and is available the night preceding the start of the workshop and the following night. For the Monday and Tuesday workshop housing will be available Sunday and Monday evenings. For the Thursday and Friday workshop housing will be available on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. In addition to workshop lunches for all participants, breakfast and dinner on the first day and breakfast on the second day will be provided at the College Cafeteria to participants residing in campus housing. Participants will be responsible for their transportation and any other meals.

Please note: CAUSEway workshops receive principal funding from a National Science Foundation grant. As part of that award, Science and Mathematics Program Improvement (SAMPI) at Western Michigan University will be conducting an independent evaluation of all CAUSEway activities and workshop participants are expected to fully participate in this evaluation.