StatChat: Halloween Edition, Featuring Anelise Sabbag

Another fun, informative, and successful StatChat came and went this past October 27th.  Still hosted at Macalester College, there was a full plate on the agenda and full plates with great treats shared among attendees.

After the always mandatory food, drinks, and socializing, Monica Brown and Joe Roith from St. Kate's presented on St. Kate's new Interdisciplinary Statistics minor.  Milo Schield from Augsburg College spoke on problems with introductory statistics courses, as well as initiated discussion about revising the current GAISE recommendations.

A highlight of the night was a presentation by our own Anelise Sabbag: "A focus on statistical reasoning.  What did we learn from the GOALS instrument?"  Anelise explored what we are learning about students' statistical reasoning based on field test results from GOALS in Fall 2014.  Key points included the most challenging types of questions for students and the learning goals with which they are most struggling.

Anelise fearlessly taking over the room with her intellect, energy, and wit!

Of course it wouldn't be a Halloween StatChat without the famed Stat-O-Lantern!  Thanks to Mike Huberty for the spooky, statistical display.

The Stat-O-Lantern was the toughest audience member, skeptically judging each presentation and asking the hard questions

Congratulations, Dr. Beckman!

Our Stat Ed family is proud to announce that Matt Beckman (now Dr.) successfully defended his dissertation, "Assessment of Cognitive Transfer Outcomes for Students of Introductory Statistics", on Monday, October 12th!

We are all so proud of and happy for Matt.  His story with the Stat Ed family began back in 2009.  In his own words:

"I moved to MN in fall 2006 and completed my M.S. in the University of Minnesota Statistics Department. I took Michelle Everson's "Becoming a Teacher of Statistics" class in Spring 2008 as an elective in my last semester.  She & Joan hired me as adjunct faculty to teach EPSY 5261 for Fall 2008 and Spring 2009, and then told me about the Stat Dd PhD program.  So, I enrolled in Fall 2009."

All smiles!  Dr. Beckman and his committee, under the glow of success.

We wish Dr. Beckman all of the best as he and his family transition out to the east coast!  Matt will soon be starting in his new position in the Penn State University Statistics Department, as the Director of Undergraduate Programs.

Congratulations again, Dr. Beckman!  You will be missed, but naturally, your fruitful journey continues.

Summer So Far Part 2: USCOTS 2015

Late May of this year kicked off summer adventures for more of our stat ed family!  Bob delMas and Nicola attended USCOTS 2015 in State College, PA.  A successful platter of data gathering, presentations, socializing, and good summer antics was nicely served.

All smiles!  Bob, Nicola, and colleague Catherine Case from the University of Florida.

Conference-wise, Nicola conducted focus groups to collect data for her thesis.  She met and had excellent conversations with a variety of graduate teaching assistants, who kindly shared their experiences.

Bob was active with several presentations and papers.  He delivered a three-hour session titled, "Bringing the Statistics Education Research Literature into your Classroom", to community college statistics instructors as part of a USCOTS pre-conference training workshop.  The session involved participants reading from and discussing chapters from Garfield & Ben-Zvi's 2008 book, "Developing Students' Statistical Reading: Connecting Research and Teaching Practice."  Along with Michael Posner from Villanova, Bob also lead breakout session to help participants start statistics educational research programs and agendas in their respective departments.  Finally, Bob contributed two poster presentations.  One focused on the STI and GOALS v.2 instruments developed under e-ATLAS, including national data from teachers and students (poster co-authored with Joan Garfield, Andy Zieffler, and Elizabeth Fry).  The other presented validity and reliability aspects of the LOCUS assessments using the modified evidence-centered design approach, based on data from 3,430 students in grades 6 through 12 (co-authored with Tim Jacobbe and Douglas Whitaker).

Amid all of the excellent scholarly work was plenty of fun!  Bob and Nicola explored State College, including an important walk for ice cream from a local creamery.  Statistics PhD folks from Penn State further served as gracious guests, providing rewarding socializing and taking Bob and Nicola out to dinner.  They also spent quality time with stat ed colleague Catherine Case from the Florida LOCUS group.

The trip was not without some traveling adventures!  A poor bird flapped its way into the wrong tree at the airport, as shown below, delaying the flight.

The sad fluff from a feathered friend who flew too well -- leading to an adventurous flight delay.

To round out the trip, Bob graciously took a moment to show off his harmonica skills with a bluesy and delightful performance!

All in all, it was a great conference and a fantastic part of this summer!

Summer So Far Part 1: College in the Schools

Summer is in full swing!  Among all of the fun summer activities, good time was spent on furthering the partnership, growth, and camaraderie withe teachers in the College in the Schools (CIS) program.  During the first week of July, about 25 teachers from schools participating in CIS all over Minnesota visited the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.  Hosted by our Stat Ed family, it provided an excellent opportunity for teachers to meet face-to-face, observe how the CATALST course is implemented, and discuss and share ideas with our Stat Ed faculty and students.

A white board filled with intelligence in the summer CATALST class (EPSY 3264) visited by CIS teachers.

The days were packed with full agendas.  Visiting instructors completed activities from the CATALST curriculum, including the "iPod Shuffle" and "Comparing Airlines" activities.  Additionally, they were treated to a full observation of the CATALST course in action, by attending Andy Zieffler's summer EPSY 3264 course, which covered the "Helper/Hinderer" and "Comparing Airlines" activities.  Following the class, fruitful discussion and team-building took place.  Lastly, instructors completed assessments together, and talked about distinctive CATALST assessment methods, such as holistic grading and group quizzes and exams.

The bountiful group discussions and interactions throughout the visit spurred a key growth: the development of a Community of Practice, where instructors better got to know each other, as well as many of us here in Stat Ed.  Importantly, this included an essential round of sharing fun personal facts!

As a promising sign at the end of the visit, it was a great joy to see how excited the visiting instructors were about using Tinkerplots.

All in all, it was a successful week and another great chapter in the partnership with CIS.

Congratulations! 2014-15 QME Teaching Award Winner: Elizabeth Fry

The QME Teaching Award is given each year to recognize a graduate student in the Quantitative Methods in Education program for excellence in teaching. This award will be presented at the department annual spring pizza party on May 8.

Stat ed student Elizabeth Fry won this year's award, much to the delight of her stat ed peers and faculty members.

In Liz's own words:

Liz at ICOTS-9 this past summer in Arizona

"I have been teaching in QME for almost 3 years, after having taught for two years in Ohio. My first year teaching in Minnesota, I taught EPSY 3264, otherwise known as the CATALST course. This is an innovative introductory statistics course for undergraduates that teaches the ideas of statistical inference through simulation-based methods. 

For the past two years, I have been teaching EPSY 5261, an introductory statistics course for graduate students in various different programs. In this course, I use the Lock et al. (2013) textbook, teaching inference first through bootstrap intervals and randomization tests, and then moving on to learn parametric methods. 

This past year, I took on a new challenge: Teaching online for the first time! I enjoy taking a subject that many students initially find intimidating, and showing them how interesting and engaging it truly is through the use of many collaborative activities and group discussion.

It is an honor to receive this award for something I love doing so much! I have grown tremendously as a teacher during my time in QME, and that is largely thanks to being in a supportive environment with mentors and colleagues who are also passionate about teaching. "


Congratulations, Liz, on this wonderful, well-deserved award for all of your great efforts, expertise, and teaching passion!

March Workshop: "Teaching Statistical Investigation Process with Simulation and Randomization-Based Inference"

Amid the busy semester, a couple of stat ed students escaped Minnesota's chilly spring to bask in the sunny dryness of Arizona!

Nicola and Anelise joined Cal-Poly colleagues Allan Rossman, Beth Chance, and Soma Roy in presenting at a workshop called "Teaching the Statistical Investigation Process with Simulation and Randomization-Based Inference" at Mesa Community College in Arizona on March 6 - 7.  The workshop included a brief taste of to two curricula: Introduction to Statistical Investigations (ISI; Tintle et al., http://www.math.hope.edu/isi/ ); and CATALST.  

This was part of a series of free workshops by the ISI team designed to help teachers of statistics gain familiarity with randomization-based methods and the process of statistical inference.

In the brief weekend trip, Anelise and Nicola also managed to explore Arizona State University, enjoy some ice cream on a warm evening, and take a few snapshots.

A happy balloon cactus greeted them in the airport!

New (Old) Stat Ed - QME Student: Meet Mike!

Hi everyone!

Mike Huberty with his family.

My name is Mike Huberty.  Like Jonathan, I am in my first year of the Statistics Education (QME) program at the University of Minnesota.  My path to this program has also been an adventure, though my path has been different than Jonathan's. 

I earned by bachelors degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Minnesota in 1991 and got my Masters degree in teaching math and physics from the University of St. Thomas in 1993.   I have taught mathematics, statistics, and science to mostly high school students since then – Totino-Grace H.S. in Fridley, MN (1993-1998); Mounds View H.S. in Arden Hills, MN (1998-present); and St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN (2005-2006).

In 2002, I was the math and science curriculum director for Mounds View Public Schools when I received a brochure for a new course titled "Becoming a Teacher of Statistics."  As we were planning to implement A.P. Statistics that fall, I enrolled in that course with two colleagues from our school district.  Joan Garfield taught that course and started a connection that continues to this day.

"Stat Chat" Stat-O-Lantern, 2014

Since that time, I kept in contact with Dr. Garfield – from inviting her to observe our high school statistic students' project presentations to attending monthly "Stat Chat" gatherings of college professors interesting in improving introductory statistics.  In the fall of 2011, I piloted the CATALST curriculum with high school students, and was impressed by what the students could conceptually understand without the more formal A.P. Statistics training.  When I attended the 10th anniversary celebration of the Stat Ed program in the fall of 2012, I decided then that I needed to do what Dr. Garfield has asked me to do for the past ten years – join her PhD program!

This has been an exciting, and exhausting, year.  I am now a full-time student in the Statistics Education program at the University of Minnesota.  I am also still teaching part-time at Mounds View H.S.  I love teaching!  It is a passion!  And I can't fully give up my science background as I am still involved with the Science Olympiad program – organizing science competitions for students in grades 2 through 12 and teaching Lego robotics in the summer to kids ages 9-11.

Nothing in life is better than helping the next generation learn!  In fact, it is a privilege.

:-)  Mike

New Stat Ed - QME Student: Meet Jonathan!

Hello!

I wish this was my dog. Alas, it is not. I'm a cat guy anyway.

I’m Jonathan Brown and I’m in my first year of the Stat Ed – QME program.  My path into this program has been quite an adventure, and I’m very happy to be here!

Growing up and heading into undergrad, I had aspirations to figure out the Universe at the most fundamental level, as well as protect the Earth from potentially apocalyptic asteroids.  Accordingly, I earned a Bachelor of Science from UW-Madison in 2009, majoring in Astronomy-Physics, with a Business minor.  I conducted astronomy research from 2007-2009, analyzing quasar spectra in an attempt to characterize hydrogen gas clouds through their interference with said spectra.  I was fortunate to spend a year teaching physics through the Physics Department's Peer-Mentor-Tutor program, providing educational support to first-generation students and students from underrepresented groups enrolled in introductory physics courses.

While the joy of cosmology and physics never left me, issues on the social side of science sparked my interest, and I sought to dive into other aspects of science, other than the science itself.  This included teaching, policy, and ethical issues.  This lead to me earning a Master of Science in Science and Technology Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in 2012, with a Public Health minor.  I focused my attention on nanotechnology policy, and conducted research on the public perception of nanotechnology in food.  I was additionally a statistics teaching assistant for two half-semester classes and loved it. 

Following my Master’s degree, I stayed at the Humphrey School for two years as a research fellow, working on issues of nanotechnology in food, women’s experiences in science and technology policy careers, and the impact of university research on domestic food safety.

As I pondered my next steps, I realized that I missed teaching and had unexplored passions for improving education, specifically, quantitative education.  I began fondly thinking back to my times teaching physics in undergrad and statistics in my Master’s program.  Following recommendations from peers, I discovered the Stat Ed group within the QME program and it struck me like an inspirational lightning bolt that this was where I next wanted to be.  I strongly desired to not only teach quantitative material, but to make such teaching better and positively impact students as much as possible.

My primary research interest within statistics education is teaching assistant and instructor development, but I am happy researching numerous areas, issues, and topics.  Being given the opportunity to teach statistics while conducting and potentially implementing research to improve statistics education is awesome!

Outside of school and work, my life is filled with two other activities: fitness and improv.  Among the joys and sanity I derive from fitness and sports, sprinting is my favorite pastime.  I hope to indefinitely compete in friendly track meets in the 200 meter, 400 meter, and possibly the mile.  I've been training in and doing improv for over a year, and have enjoyed successes and experiences that I never could have imagined.  I’m currently a part of one improv group and am hoping to stay indefinitely connected to the stage.  Additionally, as a wonderful externality, my teaching has definitely strengthened due to my improv training and experience.  Many improv principles directly apply to teaching of any kind!

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.

Reflections from the ICOTS Conference: Two Worlds

Ane's Reflections:

 

After finishing my Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota, I went back to Brazil and since then I have been between two “worlds”: the world of U.S., with all I learned about statistics education, and the world of Brazil, where statistics education is still growing. It has been a challenge to unite both worlds; however, at ICOTS these two worlds got together very smoothly. I had the chance to meet some professors from all parts of Brazil who were interested in statistics education. Through their work I could see some of what is being done is Brazil. I had the chance to see Claudia Borim present about developing school mathematics teachers’ reasoning about variation. I also saw other presentations about critical statistics education from Celso Campos and students’ experiences with an online exercise from Andre Samartini.

Assessment development is an area of great interest of mine, so I was excited to see all the work that has been done in developing new assessments in the US. I very much enjoyed the sessions about the LOCUS assessment presented by Tim Jacobbe and Douglas Whitaker (University of Florida). I also had a great time hearing from my colleagues at the University of Minnesota: Robert delMas presented on the CAOS instrument and Laura Ziegler presented on the BLIS assessment.

However, ICOTS and statistics education goes beyond the US and Brazil. I had a chance to meet some renowned researchers such as Carmen Batanero from Spain. In addition, I was very interested in a presentation from Caterina Primi (Italy) about using Item Response Theory to construct a scale to measure basic probabilistic reasoning skills.

All the fun I had at ICOTS and everything I learned would not have been possible without the funding I got. So thank you Joan Garfield and the IASE for the financial help. :)

Reflections from the ICOTS Conference: My First ICOTS Experience

Reflections from Liz
 

On the Wednesday of ICOTS, Ethan and I got to visit the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. While hiking near the volcano, I was amazed at the beautiful scenery all around, and the gorgeous views I got from every angle! At one point during the hike, Ethan picked up a rock and pointed out how interesting it looked up close (see the top left frame of my photo). When I shifted my perspective from looking far away to looking at things up close, I noticed the small details and intricacies of the scenery around me, such as the tree trunk that also appears in my photo. Although the “big picture” of the scenery was gorgeous to look at, I was slower to notice the additional beauty to be seen in the details up close!

Going into the conference, I think my perspective went the other way around: I was focused on the details, asking questions like: What details of the work I did for my 90-page pre-dissertation do I share for my 15-minute contributed talk? What individual presentations am I interested in attending? The first couple of days, I got caught up in the details of how I could “session-hop” from talk to talk in order to catch as many of the presentations as possible that I wanted to see. I ended up missing portions of the presentations I planned on seeing. So later on, I tried the “big picture” approach, asking: What session themes are most interesting to me? What major topics do I want to learn about?

Going to entire sessions helped me to see the bigger ideas and themes that connect the work of researchers and scholars around the world. One presentation I enjoyed was given by Douglas Whitaker from the Florida LOCUS group. In his talk, he had a slide of various assessments that have been developed in statistics education, including the GOALS assessment that our e-ATLAS team has been working on. The slide gave me a way to visualize how this assessment fits into a larger framework, and reminded me that there are various other people at different places who share the interest of developing good assessments.

I enjoyed not only meeting new people, but reconnecting with colleagues I already knew, including the SRTL friends I had met one year earlier! It was exciting to hear from many colleagues I already knew about how their research has continued to progress, not only during their presentations but also in informal conversations over meals and snacks. One invited session I enjoyed involved research by Susanne Podworny, Janet Ainley, Keren Aridor-Berger and colleagues on technology-enhanced learning environments. At this session, it was very interesting to learn more about the big picture of students’ learning trajectories while they used technology to reason about uncertainty, as well as the details of their reasoning as shown in several excepts of students’ dialogue.

ICOTS reminded me of the importance of collaboration, communication, and being aware of what statistics education colleagues around the world are doing. While the details of our own work are important, it is also essential to step back and look at how our work fits into a larger context. We are not alone—there are many, many others who share the goal of improving the grand landscape of statistics education!

Reflections from the ICOTS Conference: The Collective Fight for Statistics ducation

Nicola's reflections on ICOTS-9

The ICOTS conference was full of delightful encounters with colleagues we respect and also dearly love. How fun to jump and dance in circles with Dani Ben-Zvi when he became excited that it was time to take a photo together! ICOTS also presented opportunities for going "deeper" with folks we may or may not have engaged with much with before. I feel particularly lucky to have discussed teaching with Sandy Madden for a couple hours; her thoughtful, research-based approach to teaching blew my mind!

A profound moment occurred for me during the panel session on GTA development. When Patti Frazer Lock and Kari Lock Morgan each referred to my talk from a few days earlier, I realized that our work is meaningful not only to us, but also to others. More importantly, it is encouraging to realize that there are other statistics educators interested in our work. In short, this reminded me that we are contributing to a collective fight for better statistics education. The key word is collective.

This illustrates my biggest take-away from ICOTS: we are not alone. ICOTS helps us realize there are other statistics education researchers who are working around the world: in assessment at the K–12 levels (e.g. the Florida LOCUS group); in creating innovative documents to inform K–12 education (e.g. the SET document writers); in grappling with their national standards for statistics, many of which are embedded in math and science (e.g. Jane Watson). And as the discipline grows, statistics educators all across the world (e.g. South Africa, England, and here at home...) are faced with challenges for teacher development.

As we engage in our statistics education endeavors, ICOTS is a great chance to remember that we are not alone. We have many collaborators who are also joining in the collective fight to improve statistics education around the world.

ICOTS 2014: Part I

Many of the Catalysts for Change are at the 9th International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS) taking place in Flagstaff, Arizona. So far there have been an abundance of thought-provoking sessions and several of our graduate students have had an opportunity to present research that they have been working on over the past year.

Ethan Brown captivates himself and the audience with some compelling work on students' response patterns to assessment items related to sample size and inference.

Anelise Sabbag shares her work examining the psychometric properties of the GOALS assessment using IRT. 

iPod Shuffle Activity wins Peter Holmes Prize

The setup of the iPod Shuffle activity

Last year, Catalysts Laura Ziegler (Ph.D. candidate) and Joan Garfield published an article in Teaching Statistics about on the iPod Shuffle activity from the CATALST introductory statistics curriculum. We are excited to announce that this article has just won the 2013 Peter Holmes Prize, which is given to the best classroom idea published in Teaching Statistics that year!

Peter writes, "I particularly liked the context of the iPod shuffle, but even more the nature of the student activity where they had to write their report giving their three 'rules'."

You can read an overview of the activity in our previous blog post, or see the full article in Teaching Statistics.

Dr. Everson speaks to ASA Twin Cities about 10 years teaching statistics online

Yesterday's meeting of the American Statistical Association, Twin Cities Chapter was focused on a subject very dear to us Catalysts: statistics education!  Milo Schield of Augsburg College opened the evening by discussing "Two Big Ideas for Teaching Big Data", reflecting on the importance of causation and confounding especially in a world of data-driven decision making where the data is observational, and every association is "statistically significant."

Our Michelle Everson then spoke about the lessons she's learned from her ten years of online statistics instruction.  How do you foster active learning in the online classroom?  How do you keep the work manageable?  How involved should you be in discussion?  As someone constantly experimenting and critiquing her own techniques, Dr. Everson didn't present final answers to these questions, but she did share her accumulated wisdom from her online journey:

Top Ten Things Learned From Ten Years of Online Statistics Teaching (Michelle Everson)

Joint Mathematics Meetings

Nicola Parker and Andy Zieffler went to Baltimore, MD to participate in the Joint Mathematics Meetings on January 15–18, 2014. 

Besides attending the Joint Meetings, they also gave a 4-hour minicourse on the CATALST course. The minicourse included 14 enthusiastic participants from colleges and universities across the country (and even a high school teacher!). Even though the second-half of the minicourse took place on Saturday afternoon—the last day of the conference—all of the participants came back, and we even gained a participant. We think it was quite a success and have been invited to return and repeat it again next year at the 2015 Joint Meetings in San Antonio!

Nicola mesmorizes the minicourse participants with TinkerPlots.

The meetings were well attended and included a Contributed Paper Session sponsored by the Statistics Education SIGMAAA—Data, Modeling, and Computing in the Introductory Statistics Course. Catherine Case and Melanie Battle gave a nice talk, Toward a Conceptual Understanding of P-values: The Advantages and Challenges of Randomization-Based Inference, which referenced some of the research that has come out of the CATALST project. In addition, Nick Horton's talk, Big Data in the Intro Stats Class: Use of the Airline Delays Dataset to Expose Students to a Real-World, Complex Dataset, also gave a plug for CATALST, making use of the Comparing Airlines MEA that is the initial activity in Unit 2 of the CATALST book.

 

Catherine Case and Melanie Battle, graduate students at the University of Florida, gave a nice talk on students' understanding of p-value when implementing randomization methods in introductory statistics courses and referenced CATALST.

 

HHMI Curricular Collaborations Meeting

On January 13–15, 2014, Laura Le, Laura Ziegler, and Andy Zieffler participated in the HHMI Curricular Collaborations meeting that took place at the Howard Hughes Medical Initiative center in Chevy Chase, MD. The meeting included HHMI grant awardees whose grant focus was on curricular innovation through multi-institution collaboration.

Laura and Laura "re-sample" poses from the Harmon Trophy which was awarded to Howard Hughes in 1936 and 1938 as the world's most outstanding aviator.

Our work is building and evaluating an assessment of quantitative skills and reasoning for biology students. This work started in June, 2013 when science educator/researchers from several liberal arts colleges—the grant includes Bryn Maar, Claremont McKenna, Emory, Harvey Mudd, Lewis & Clark, Macalester, Morehouse, Oberlin, and St. Olaf—gathered to brainstorm in Portland, OR. The conversations in Portland led to an initial version of an instrument that was piloted at many of these schools.

This meeting we spent several more hours refining both our vision/goal for the instrument. Pilot results were used to also help further flesh out the instrument. Next steps include making revisions and a second piloting.

We had several speakers and learned about many different projects throughout the meetings, including learning about the new MCAT, which will be administered starting in 2016.

Omnipresent variation in visions of the future introductory statistics textbook

The latest issue of Technology Innovations of Statistics Education, edited by Rob Gould of the University of California at Los Angeles, presents three very distinct visions of the the possibilities for a future statistics textbook. These articles are based on a session organized by Joan Garfield at the 2011 Joint Statistical Meetings, in Miami, Florda.

Three members of the CATALST team—Andrew Zieffler, Rebekah Isaak, and Joan Garfield—discuss the role of textbook in developing an introductory undergraduate course based on using simulation, randomization, and the bootstrap to develop the core logic of inference.

The innovation is primarily pedagogical. Zieffler et al. discuss how they found that having a unified, structured document to be very useful in supporting students' learning in an activity-based, student-centered course. The latest version of the textbook is available for free from Catalyst Press under a Creative Commons license which allows modification and incorporation of the material in for-profit works. (See our previous post on this book). The article discusses future plans for further innovations to the book such as incorporating videos directly into an e-book.

Cetinkaya-Rundel, Diez, and Barr also present a free product, OpenIntro Statistics, which is totally open source (the source code is fully available for modification). Their approach is based on a normal-theory based approach to the introductory course, chosen to encourage wide adoption, and the authors discuss the advantage inherent in having such a radically open process for development.

Webster West of North Carolina State University presents a vision that is more technologically intensive, including algorithmically generated exercises and tight integration of the textbook with the course management system and analysis software. His experiences partnering with Pearson Education and developing StatCrunch speak to how one might integrate technology with widely used, mainstream textbooks (though he describes himself as "closet radical").

The whole issue is well worth reading, because it features some lively and skeptical comments representing conflicting opinions from statistics education luminaries Beth Chance and Allan Rossman, George Cobb, Paul Velleman, and Jessica Utts, followed by responses from the authors.

Social Media and Statistics Education

Dr. Michelle Everson is helping to catalyze new directions in statistics education through social media and the online classroom.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter provide not only distractions, but also great opportunities.  Building on her work in online classrooms and her teaching experiments that incorporate social media, the University of Minnesota's Michelle Everson provides some tips and resources for using social media to teach some resources in the latest AMSTAT News. She candidly shares both the successes and failures that she's experienced using these approaches.

For a deeper dive, Michelle has also recently published an overview of the pedagogy of social media in the latest issue of Computers and Human Behavior, with coauthors Ellen Gundlach of Purdue University, and Jaqueline Miller of Ohio State University.  Entering the maelstrom of social media is a bit easier with these thoughtful and seasoned teachers to guide you!

SRTL-8: Great Discussions by a Great Lake

Great statistics education thinkers from around the world came to sleepy Two Harbors, Minnesota for a week of discussion, debate, and reflection on the great issues in our field. The theme of the Eighth Forum of the International Collaboration for Research on Statistical Reasoning Thinking and Literacy (SRTL-8) was: Reasoning about uncertainty in the context of making informal statistical inferences. Our explorations of students' reasoning about uncertainty included many videos of students working through problems, and we explored the process of informal inferences qualitatively and quantitatively among K–12 and undergraduate students and teachers.

Twenty-four international delegates attended the week-long event from nine countries across the globe: Australia, Colombia, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Forum provided the group of scholars with an opportunity for dedicated discussion and debate of the theme, stimulated by in-depth presentations and informal sharing of projects. A distinctive feature of SRTL's format is the emphasis on reflection and group discussion: a conference on student learning that is set up to foster deeper participant engagement and open-ended exploration than is usually available at lecture-oriented conferences.

Follow-up events are to include a book based on the scientific program, published through Catalyst Press, informal gatherings at other upcoming statistics education meetings, and ongoing research collaborations among many of the delegates. Plans are already underway for the next meeting (SRTL-9) in Germany in 2015.

The Forum was sponsored by The University of Minnesota, the Statistics Education Section of the American Statistical Association, Springer Publications, and Alakef Coffee Roasters.

Joan Garfield and Elizabeth Fry from The University of Minnesota led the local planning and organizing prior to the SRTL-8 gathering, supported by Bob delMas (University of Minnesota) and Dani Ben-Zvi (University of Haifa, Israel), who ensured that the forum ran smoothly. Thanks to the efforts of the local organizers, participants were able to not only enjoy each other’s creative efforts during the scientific program but also to appreciate the local culture and natural beauty of Minnesota’s north shore!

For further information please contact the SRTL co-chairs:

Joan Garfield, jbg@umn.edu

Dani Ben-Zvi, dbenzvi@univ.haifa.ac.il

Scientific Program

George Cobb	Statistician's address: Reasoning about uncertainty: why our tensions are essential
Cliff Konold	Using data and chance to make conclusions
Hana Manor Braham, Dani Ben-Zvi	Students' reasoning about uncertainty while exploring sampling distributions in an "Integrated Approach"
Arthur Bakker, Dani Ben-Zvi, Katie Makar	Reducing uncertainty in a hospital laboratory: A vocational student's web of reasons and actions involved in making a statistical inference
Janet Ainley, Dani Ben-Zvi, Hana Manor Braham, Dave Pratt:	Children's expressions of uncertainty in statistical modelling
Rob Gould	Teaching data handling
Rolf Biehler, Daniel Frischemeier, Susanne Podworny	Preservice teachers' reasoning about uncertainty in the context of randomization tests
Luca Zapata	Promoting the development of teachers' ideas of uncertainty
Sandra Madden	Constructing simulations and interrogating empirical sampling distributions supports teachers' reasoning in the presence of uncertainty
Pip Arnold, Stephanie Budgett, Maxine Pfannkuch	Experiment-to-causation inference: The emergence of new considerations regarding uncertainty
Robert delMas & Ethan Brown	Students' emerging reasoning with uncertainty in a randomization-based first course in statistics at the tertiary level
Jennifer Noll	Facilitating students' Reasoning about uncertainty in the context of making informal inferences: the role of curriculum and technology
Jill Fielding-Wells, Katie Makar	Inferring to a model: Using inquiry-based argumentation to challenge young children's expectations of equally likely outcomes
Sibel Kazak	"How confident are you?" Supporting young students' reasoning about uncertainty in chance games through students' talk and computer simulations