Sunday, February 1, 2015

2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings

Joan Garfield and Elizabeth Fry: poster-session superstars.  They shared their poster about assessments developed under the NSF e-ATLAS grant.

Two Catalysts for Change, Joan Garfield and Elizabeth Fry, kicked off the New Year with a trip to San Antonio, Texas for the Joint Math Meetings.  They arrived before the meetings began, in order to attend a workshop led by Allan Rossman, Robin Lock, and colleagues to learn about their approaches to teaching simulation and randomization-based methods in introductory statistics courses.

Elizabeth Fry presenting her paper and work on the Statistics Teaching Inventory developed under the NSF e-ATLAS grant, and solidifying her case as the next TedTalk rising star.

The fun did not stop there.  On January 10, Liz presented a contributed paper, What do we know about best practices in teaching the introductory course?  This presentation showcased the work that has been done on the Statistics Teaching Inventory, a national survey of statistics instructors, developed under the NSF e-ATLAS grant.  The following day, Joan and Liz participated in a special poster session for NSF-funded projects, where they shared more about the assessments developed under the e-ATLAS project.

In addition to bringing statistics education research and expertise, Elizabeth Fry and Joan Garfield brought a little midwestern winter to San Antonio.  Temperatures were a tad chillier than expected for local residents. Beautiful elements along the San Antonio River Walk, providing the rare sight for Minnesotans of an unfrozen body of water in winter.

Despite record cold temperatures for San Antonio (which felt balmy compared to temperatures in Minnesota), Liz and Joan spent plenty of time outside walking around, exploring the Riverwalk, and taking advantage of some of the finest dining that the city has to offer.  They particularly enjoyed excellent food and company one evening at Citrus restaurant together with John Holcomb and Nick Horton.

Joan Garfield, Elizabeth Fry, John Holcomb, and Nick Horton taking time to replenish at Citrus restaurant.  It is ill-advised to talk about statistics without sufficient food and beverage.