SIGMAA Notes: Statistics-Education
This article is published in the December 2011/January 2012 issue of MAA FOCUS.
The purpose of the Statistics Education SIGMAA is to facilitate the exchange of ideas about teaching statistics, the undergraduate statistics curriculum, and other issues related to providing students with effective and engaging encounters with statistics in their courses of study. We also hope to foster increased understanding of statistics among members of the MAA, promote the discipline of statistics among students, and work cooperatively with other organizations to encourage effective teaching and learning of statistics.
JMM
At the January 2012 meeting in Boston the SIGMAA on Statistics Education has several interesting events planned. The SIGMAA is sponsoring two contributed paper sessions: “Motivating Statistical and Quantitative Learning through Social Engagement” (cosponsored with the Quantitative Literacy SIGMAA) and “Innovations in Teaching Statistics in the New Decade.” A minicourse on teaching introductory statistics will be presented by Michael Posner and Carolyn Cuff. The minicourse is intended for instructors who are new to teaching intro stats, particularly mathematicians who have little formal training in statistics.
With the ASA-MAA Committee on Statistics Education, the Stat-Ed SIGMAA is sponsoring a panel entitled “Statistics and Probability in the Common Core State Standards.” The Common Core State Standards for mathematics in grades K–12 have now been adopted by 44 states. Soon more students will come to college knowing some statistics, so we will need to change our introductory statistics courses. In addition, the teachers we educate will need to be prepared to teach this curriculum. The panel will give an overview of the statistics and probability content in these standards, discuss how the research relates to these standards, consider what should change in our introductory courses, and describe the knowledge needed by our future K–12 teachers. The panelists will be Christine Franklin, Joan Garfield, Roxy Peck, J. Michael Shaughnessy, and Andrew Zieffler.
The Dex Whittinghill Award is given annually by the SIGMAA for the best contributed paper on statistics education at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. Last year’s award was given to Scott Alberts of Truman State University for his talk entitled “Experiential Learning of Nonparametric Statistics through a Campus-Client Led Survey Project.” Join us for the Stat-Ed SIGMAA business meeting and reception in Boston on Thursday evening at 5:45 for the announcement of this year’s awardee.
For further information about the SIGMAA and its activities, visit http://sigmaa.maa.org/stat-ed/.