Statistics Teaching and Learning Corner
In a previous blog, I wrote about representation as one of the guidelines for Universal Design for Learning (UDL). In this blog post, I am going to concentrate on engagement.
Tl;dr -- Our classrooms are plagued with societal expectations which oppress certain students’ opportunities to learn and build an identity as a statistician/data scientist. Our students deserve more mindful approaches to group work and methods that create equitable spaces for everyone.
Throughout the pandemic, I’ve experimented with a variety of communication tools, synchronous and asynchronous ones, to better connect with my students...Frustrations led me on the search for an alternative platform. That’s when I stumbled across Ed Discussion.
Before March 2020, I was not a very flexible teacher in terms of course policy. I was quite rigid on deadlines unless there were emergencies and exams were “one and done.” ...I needed to find a better balance between increasing flexibility for students and the amount of time I spent negotiating logistical details. That summer, I read Small Teaching Online, which is where I first heard about the idea of using “Oops tokens.”
In the summer of 2020, I decided it was time to collect some data from my garden. I did this for two reasons: 1) I was curious about how much food I produced. 2) I wanted to use the data in my Introductory Data Science course at Macalester College. I knew the data would be fairly simple, and I liked that it would be a bit personal and give a way for me to connect with students. Although I didn’t know it when I started collecting the data, the personal a
Many colleges and universities have made a strong effort to make their campuses more inclusive to all people, especially those from underrepresented and historically marginalized minority groups. These efforts include faculty incorporating instruction that focuses on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) issues in their classroom. Statistics instructors have a unique opportunity to engage students in work around DEI considering there is an abundance of data available today to explore these issues. In this blog post, we share some of the data sets and activities we have used in our undergraduate introductory statistics classes to engage students in conversations around big issues that persist in marginalized groups.
StatTLC 