Teaching

Overview 

• Statistics education is an essential component of any individual's general knowledge

• Statistics is a highly feared subject 

• Learning statistics requires opportunities to make mistakes

• Instructors need to provide appropriate learning outcomes to make expectations clear. 

• Instructors need to intentionally work to alleviate student anxiety through thoughtful assessment strategies and ample opportunities to practice skills in low stakes settings.

Teaching Inspiration

•  Pursuing an education was a clear and obtainable way to reach my professional goals and overcome the professional limits imposed by my rural home town. 

• I have experienced how difficult the academic journey can be, especially in the early years. 

• My educational success was greatly shaped by the instructors who invested their time, energy, and passion into my learning. 

• I want to provide that same guidance and support to the next generation of students.

Scope of Statistics Education

• Statistics is both a science and an art that is relevant to a large variety of individuals. 

• We live in a technology and data based society,making it is important to have at least a basic understanding of statistics to make sense of the numerous claims we hear everyday.

• More disciplines are incorporating data and data analysis into their daily functions. 

Effective Learning Environment

• Students know the instructor cares about their success and the instructor knows the students care about learning.

•  Once this common trust is established, deviations from perfection such as poor quiz scores, missed homeworks, or missed lectures have a lesser negative impact on student learning. 

• Effective instructors also curate an environment where students can learn from each other. (example in full statement)

Appropriate Learning Outcomes

• Statistics students are incredibly diverse, requiring appropriate learning outcomes.

• Learning outcomes make expectations for students transparent. (examples in full statement)

• Learning outcomes at all levels should incorporate the art and the science aspects of statistics.

Effective Teaching Strategies

• This direct instruction is essential since one’s intuition can often be misleading in statistics. 

• Lectures do not solely impart knowledge, but prepare students to work independently on their own projects.

• Lectures will include real world examples that illuminate the subtleties of different statistical concepts. (example in full statement)

• Create activities that allow students to practice being a discerning consumer of statistics.

•  Verbal participation by the students will provide opportunities for practicing proper use of statistical language.

Strategic Assessments

• Provide a balance of formative and summative assessments. 

• Provide high frequency and low stakes formative assessments such as homework and quizzes. This allows students to learn from mistakes instead of fearing their mistakes will ruin their grade.

• Homeworks and quizzes will be comprised of multiple choice and short answer questions in order to be able to reasonably provide high frequency feedback.

Grading Philosophy

•  Final grades should reflect the amount of the learning objectives the student has mastered when they leave on the final day of the course. 

• Summative assessments will be done in the following way:

  •  Students will receive one to two midterms and a final exam.

  •  Exams will be comprised of multiple choice, short answer, and problem solving questions to provide students the opportunity to demonstrate as much learning as possible.

  •  The final exam will be comprehensive and partitioned into material corresponding to each midterm and new material. 

  • If a student scores higher on the final portion corresponding to a midterm than they did on the actual midterm, the midterm grade is replaced with the grade on that portion of the final.

• This plan aims to reduce student anxiety about exams while also giving an accurate representation of the knowledge and skills the student is taking forward.

Documentation & Reflection

• To effectively document and reflect on students’ learning experience I keep two types of records. 

• The first is based on informal feedback such as student emails, mid-semester surveys, and classroom observation for a course I am currently teaching. 

  • This information allows me to identify the specific preferences and challenges my current class is experiencing. 

  • Reviewing this information allows me to make real time changes to meet my individual classes needs.

•  The second summarizes by course: topics students typically struggle with, teaching strategies students respond well too, and strategies that students disliked.

  •  This information is obtained from formal end of semester evaluations.

  •  Evaluations show large scale patterns in student experience.

  •  I can assess which strategies need to be reworked before the next running of the course. (example in full statement)

Summary

• As a statistics instructor I hope to be able to alleviate some of the inherent fear students will bring to my classroom. 

• I will work towards this goal by

  •  providing well motivated lectures

  • utilizing high frequency and low stakes formative assessment

  • utilizing student feedback to evolve my course into a form best experienced by the students

• This will allow students to actively learn skills and obtain knowledge that will not only make them more marketable employees but overall more informed citizens.