Preparing Teachers of Statistics: A Course for Graduate Students and Future Teachers

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Preparing Teachers of Statistics A Course for
Graduate Students and Future Teachers

• Joan Garfield and Michelle Everson University
  of Minnesota

2
Overview

• Discuss issues and challenges in preparing
  teachers of statistics at the secondary and
  college level.
• Present a case study of a graduate level course
  taught at the University of Minnesota that
• Focuses on developing excellent teachers of
  statistics
• Is based on the GAISE guidelines
• Helps students develop both knowledge of teaching
  (pedagogical knowledge) and specific knowledge
  about teaching statistics (pedagogical content
  knowledge).
• Explain how the course was transformed from a
  face-to-face setting to an online environment.

3
Challenges in Preparing Graduate Students to
Teach Statistics

• Changing our understanding of what constitutes
  effective pedagogy, improving the use of
  technology, and placing an emphasis on working
  with data in elementary courses raise the
  standard that teaching assistants must meet.
  Training programs should themselves be models of
  good pedagogy (Moore, 2005, p. 1)
• Training programs in statistics departments
  (Harkness Rosenberg, 2005 Froelich et al.,
  2005)
• Few graduate courses for credit (e.g., Gellman,
  2005)

4
Training vs. Development

• TA Training Prepares good teaching assistants
  to assist faculty and teach recitation sections
• TA (Teacher) Development developing
  knowledgeable, competent teachers of statistics.
  

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EPSY 5271

• A teacher development course at the University of
  Minnesota
• Unique graduate course offered yearly since 2002
• Becoming a Teacher of Statistics, regular and
  online
• Serves graduate students across all departments
  and teachers in the community

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Goals for Students in EPSY 5271

• Develop into competent and effective teachers of
  statistics
• Become part of the statistics education community
  and utilize good resources
• Develop an awareness of and appreciation for the
  research, scholarship and best practices in the
  field

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Goals in Teaching EPSY 5271

• Model an effective and positive statistics
  classroom. Teach the way we want the students
  to teach.
• Create a learning environment for developing a
  deep and meaningful understanding of statistics
  and help the teachers develop their ability to
  create this type of environment for students.
• Be a facilitator of learning by providing
  resources and activities and encouraging
  discussion and reflection.

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What is needed to be an effective teacher of
statistics?

• Teachers should
• Know their subject matter at a deep level
  (content knowledge)
• Have good teaching skills (pedagogical knowledge)
• Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK,
  Schulman,1986) is also essential to promote
  student learning

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• Preparing Teachers for a Changing World,
  Darling-Hammond and Bransford ( 2005)
• The importance of preparing teachers to go beyond
  covering the curriculum
• Those who prepare teachers are encouraged to
  build on the growing knowledge base on learning
  and teaching to support teachers in meeting these
  demands.
• A model of professional practice that includes
  knowledge of subject matter and curriculum goals,
  knowledge of learners, and knowledge of teaching
  (the subject matter).

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• Assume most graduate students preparing to teach
  introductory statistics have knowledge of the
  subject matter, they also need knowledge of
  curriculum, learners, and knowledge of teaching
  (both in general and specifically, of teaching
  statistics).
• Our course is designed to help prepare future
  teachers of statistics to become knowledgeable
  about each of these areas.

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About the Course

• A graduate-level semester long course that met
  once a week for three hours at a time
• Each offering of the course has enrolled a
  variety of students representing different
  disciplinary backgrounds and teaching
  experiences.
• Students have had required textbooks (Moore,
  2001 Gelman Nolan, 2002) as well as weekly
  assigned readings.

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Alignment with GAISE

• Course is organized around the GAISE
  recommendations.
• Emphasize statistical literacy and develop
  statistical thinking
• Use real data
• Stress conceptual understanding rather than mere
  knowledge of procedures
• Foster active learning in the classroom
• Use technology for developing conceptual
  understanding and analyzing data
• Use assessments to improve and evaluate student
  learning
• Readings and activities each focus on one if the
  guidelines.
• Each session or set of sessions are on a
  particular guideline.

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Weekly Topics

• Introduction and Overview
• Discussion of experiences learning and teaching
  statistics
• Discussion of activities for a first day of
  class, types of first and second courses
• Introduction to the new and emerging field of
  statistics education
• Introduction to GAISE recommendations
• Use of real data
• Discussion of what statistics is and EDA is, how
  EDA is reflected in introductory statistics
  courses
• Discussion of importance of data, good data sets,
  how to use them and obtain them, how to explore
  them using statistical software

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Weekly Topics

• Stress conceptual understanding rather than mere
  knowledge of procedures
• Discussion of research on teaching and learning
  statistics
• Introduction to Sampling SIM, causeweb.org
• Emphasize statistical literacy and develop
  statistical thinking
• Defining, teaching, and assessing statistical
  literacy, reasoning and thinking
• Focusing on learning outcomes
• Discussion of models and simulation

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Weekly Topics

• Foster active learning in the classroom
• Discussion of different teaching methods Active
  learning, cooperative groups, lab approaches
• Discussion of what makes a good activity
  students spend time critiquing and improving
  different activities
• Technology
• Discussion of abstract concepts that technology
  can help students visualize
• Exploration of websites, web software, online
  courses, and more

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Weekly Topics

• Assessment
• Discussion of ways to develop tests for different
  learning outcomes and concepts
• Exploration of the ARTIST website
• Discussion of student projects, critique of
  different product guidelines and review of sample
  project ideas
• Discussion of assessment rubrics

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Weekly Topics

• A Statistical Reasoning Learning Environment
  (SRLE)
• Discussion of what the SRLE is
• Crafting lesson plans and activities for the SRLE
• Innovative courses and projects
• Discussion of AP statistics, ISCAM, CHANCE, AIMS,
  and online courses

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Weekly Topics

• The Statistics Education Community
• Students learn more about where the statistics
  education field has been and where it is going
• Discussion of different publications, journals,
  organizations, conferences, websites, CAUSE, ASA,
  IASE, SRTL
• Discussion of ways to get involved in the
  statistics education community

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Final weeks Student Presentations

• Data set
• Web resource
• Group lesson plan

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Assignments and Assessments

• Presentation of a web resource
• Students find and share a favorite web resource
  that can be uses to support student learning in a
  unique way in a statistics course.
• Presentation of a data set
• Students find a data set that interests them (one
  that includes at least two variables and has both
  quantitative and categorical variables) and spend
  time exploring it and learning as much as they
  can about it. The data set is then shared with
  the class and discussion revolves around how the
  data set can be used in an introductory course.

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Assignments and Assessments

• Group Lesson Plan Project
• Students work in small groups to develop a
  detailed lesson plan for one day in an
  introductory statistics course.

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Assignments and Assessments

• Reflection Papers (4)
• Their experiences as a student of and possibly
  teacher of statistics
• Observing a class period in a first course of
  statistics
• Reading, summarizing, and critiquing three
  articles about teaching and/or learning
  statistics
• Reflecting on the course and discussing the kind
  of teacher they would like to become

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Promoting Classroom Discourse

• Another important goal for the teachers in our
  courses is to develop an appreciation for the
  value of classroom statistical discourse. This is
  different from teachers asking questions and
  students responding. The kind of discourse we
  promote is dialogue where students learn to
  question each other, respond to each others
  questions as well as defend their answers and
  data-based arguments. The use of good activities
  and technology allows for a new form of classroom
  discourse.

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Effective Classroom Discourse

• We try to model ways to create a classroom
  climate where our teachers feel safe expressing
  their views, even if they are tentative. We
  encourage them to express their conjectures, and
  ask other teachers to comment on these
  conjectures. Allowing questions that begin with
  what do you think or what would happen if can
  lead to good class discussions.

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Challenges in the Online Class

• Desire to accommodate more students
• Adapting from face-to-face
• Changing activities and assignments
• Role of discussion and promoting discourse
• A success, but changes will be made

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Evaluating the Course

• Midterm feedback
• End of course evaluation
• Students in the course typically report on how
  amazed they are at the vast set of resources
  available for teachers of statistics and how
  appreciative they are of the course and what it
  offers them as future teachers.
• End of Course Reflection paper
• Teaching philosophy statement that usually
  documents their integration of course learning
  goals.
• These statements suggest that the students in the
  course take the teaching of statistics very
  seriously, have expanded their knowledge of
  statistics education, and have developed their
  awareness of good teaching and resources for
  teaching and learning statistics.

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Success Stories

• Participation in Stat Chat
• Teaching awards
• Academic positions after grad school
• After course feedback of great success in
  introducing activities into their classes and
  encouraging their colleagues to also enroll in
  this class.
• Six students from this course attended the US
  Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS)
• In summary, the course appears to be succeeding
  in developing knowledgeable, competent, and
  enthusiastic teachers of statistics.

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Summary

• Unlike some of the teaching assistant training
  courses or programs that focus primarily on
  administering large sections of introductory
  statistics, this course strives to prepare
  teachers to understand the challenges involved in
  helping students develop important learning
  outcomes,
• Focus on developing both pedagogical knowledge
  and pedagogical content knowledge.

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Summary

• We continue to evaluate and revise our classes as
  we teach them each year.
• We hope more faculty will explore ways to develop
  courses for pre-college and postsecondary
  teachers and encourage them to consider the
  different types of knowledge needed by competent
  teachers of statistics.

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Summary

• Moore (2005) offers four recommendations for
  preparing graduate students to teach statistics
• Borrow from existing programs,
• Model good instructional practices,
• Provide students with written materials to study
  and carry away with them, and
• Evaluate how well you are doing.

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Summary

• We concur with these recommendations, and are
  happy to share our course materials with others
  who want to develop such a course
• Lists of required and recommended readings,
  assignments, assessments
• Evaluation methods
• We encourage faculty who have the opportunity to
  work with graduate students interested in
  teaching statistics to consider developing and
  offering a course that goes beyond training to
  developing excellent teachers of statistics.

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References

• Chance, B., Ben-Zvi, D., Garfield, J., Medina,
  E. (2007, October). The role of technology in
  improving student learning of statistics.
  Technology Innovations in Statistics Education
  Journal, 1(1). Available http//repositories.cdli
  b.org/uclastat/cts/tise
• Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J.(2005).
  Preparing teachers for a Changing World. John
  Wiley and Sons.
• Cobb, P., McClain, K. (2004). Principles of
  instructional design for supporting the
  development of students statistical reasoning.
  In D. Ben-Zvi J. Garfield (Eds.), The challenge
  of developing statistical literacy, reasoning,
  and thinking (pp. 375396). Dordrecht, The
  Netherlands Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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References (contd)

• Franklin, C., Garfield, J. (2006). The
  Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in
  Statistics Education (GAISE) project Developing
  statistics education guidelines for pre K-12 and
  college courses. In G.F. Burrill, (Ed.), Thinking
  and reasoning about data and chance Sixty-eighth
  NCTM Yearbook (pp. 345-375). Reston, VA National
  Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
• Froelich, A, Duckworth, W., Stephenson, W.R.
  Training Statsistics Teachers at Iowa State
  Universeity. The American Statistician. 59 (12),
  8-10

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References (contd)

• Garfield, J. (Ed.). (2005) Innovations in
  teaching statistics. Washington, DC Mathematics
  Association of America.
• Garfield, J., Ben-Zvi, D. (2005, May). A
  framework for teaching and assessing reasoning
  about variability. Statistics Education Research
  Journal, 4(1), 92-99. Retrieved December 26,
  2006, from http//www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/iase/se
  rj/SERJ4(1)_Garfield_BenZvi.pdf
• Garfield, J. Ben-Zvi, D. (2008). Developing
  Students Statistical Reasoning Connecting
  Research and Teaching Practice. Springer.

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References (contd)

• Gelman, A. (1994). A course on Teaching
  Staiststics at the University level. The American
  Statistician. 59 (12), 4-7
• Gelman, A., Nolan, D. (2002) Teaching
  Statistics A Bag of Tricks. Oxford University
  Press.
• Harkness, W., Rosenberg, J. (2005)Training
  Graduate Students at Penn State University to
  Teach Statistics. The American Statistician. 59
  (12),11-14.
• Moore, D. (2005). Preparing graduate students to
  teach statistics Introduction. The American
  Statistician. 59 (12),1-3.