Announcements: Spring

Upcoming Deadlines

Registration for Meeting Within a Meeting (MWM) Statistics Workshop for Middle- & High-School Math and Science Teachers

Registration Is Open

Meeting Within a Meeting Statistics Workshop for Middle- and High-School Mathematics and Science Teachers will take place in conjunction with the Joint Statistical Meetings, July 28–August 2, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The workshop is meant to strengthen K–12 mathematics and science teachers’ understanding of statistics and provide them with hands-on activities aligned with the Common Core State Standards that they can use in their own classrooms. The cost of the workshop is $50, though scholarships are available. If you have questions, email educinfo@amstat.org.

Improve Quantitative Literacy with Graphs

Live Discussion Every Second Tuesday of the Month

Build quantitative literacy with your middle- and high-school math, science, and humanities students with the free, online feature “What’s Going On in This Graph?”

On every second Tuesday throughout the school year, The New York Times Learning Network, in partnership with the American Statistical Association, hosts a live discussion about a timely graph. Students from around the world “read” the graph by posting comments about what they notice and wonder about in an online forum. Our staff live-moderates by responding to the comments in real time and encouraging students to go deeper. All releases are archived so teachers can use previous graphs anytime.

Visit this introductory post to learn more.

Free Data to Insight MOOC

Starts March 19 (can be joined up to 10 weeks after start date)

“Data to Insight: An Introduction to Data Analysis” is a free online course by leading statistics educator Chris Wild. Professional development for high-school teachers was a core design goal. The course provides a hands-on introduction to modern statistical data analysis, visualization, and inference emphasizing key ideas and practical empowerment. It starts from the statistical basics and steps just enough beyond them for you to provide your students with glimpses of the exciting potential that lies almost within their grasp. The timeline of future courses will be announced on the website.

Free Teaching Statistics Through Inferential Reasoning Course

Registration Closes May 1

To prepare the next generation of data-active citizens, we need to engage learners of all ages in investigations focused on making inferences and claims supported by samples of data. Teaching Statistics Through Inferential Reasoning is a free online course designed to strengthen your understanding of developing instructional strategies to emphasize inferential reasoning through posing different investigative questions. This course builds on rich data sources and dynamic graphing tools to support data exploration for investigative questions that give students opportunities to make inferences about contexts and issues of interest them.

Visit the course website to learn more and register.

Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching

Nomination Deadline Is April 1

This year’s Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching will honor mathematics and science (including computer science) teachers working in grades K-6.

April Is Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month

Organize and host activities in April for Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month! Past activities have included workshops, competitions, festivals, lectures, symposia, department open houses, math art exhibits, and math poetry readings. Please share your activities on social media and tag @AmstatNews and #mathstat. The goal is to increase public understanding of and appreciation for statistics and mathematics.

2018 Data Visualization Poster Competition and Project Competition (New Rubric & Rules)

Posters: April 1; Projects: June 1

Introduce your K–12 students to statistics through the annual poster and project competitions directed by the ASA/NCTM Joint Committee on Curriculum in Statistics and Probability. Posters (grades K–12) are due every year on April 1. Projects (grades 7–12) are due June 1. Please look closely at the new rules for the project competition and a new rubric for the poster competition.

Washington Statistical Society Curtis Jacobs Memorial Award for Outstanding Statistics Projects (DC Metro Students)

May of 2018

Created to honor the memory of Curtis Jacobs, a former Bureau of Labor Statistics statistician, the Curtis Jacobs Memorial Award for Outstanding Statistics Projects encourages DC-area middle-school and high-school students to gain an understanding of the design of statistical studies and their uses.

Grants, Awards, and Scholarships from the Mathematics Education Trust

Deadlines in May of 2018

The Mathematics Education Trust (MET) provides grants, awards, and scholarships for NCTM members. Information about the opportunities and upcoming deadlines is available on the NCTM website. Start preparing proposals now for the MET grants with a May 4 deadline.

Judges Sought for Statistics Project Competition

Summer Judging

The ASA/NCTM Joint Committee on Curriculum in Statistics and Probability is seeking judges for the 2018 Statistics Project Competition. Judging takes place via email during the summer and requires about four hours of your time. If interested, please email head judge, Nathan Kidwell.

New Resources

New Episodes of STATS+STORIES Podcast Available

The ASA has partnered with the Stats + Stories group at Miami University, a collaboration between statisticians and journalists producing podcasts that give the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics. To listen, visit the Stats+Stories website or iTunes.

List of College Majors Requiring Statistics, Jobs Report Published

Though graduation is still months away, our list of college majors that require statistics and a report on the rapid growth of statistics jobs by the Bureau of Labor Statistics may be of interest to students as they consider next steps in their academic lives.

New Statistics Education Webinars Available

The ASA offers free webinars on K–12 statistics education topics. Recently posted webinars include “STATS4STEM.ORG – A Statistical Learning Platform for Educators and Their Students” by Eric Simoneau and “Passion-Driven Statistics for High-School Students: Recent Adaptations and Updates on This Supportive, Multidisciplinary Project-Based Curriculum” by Lisa Dierker. This series was developed as part of the follow-up activities for the Meeting Within a Meeting Statistics Workshop.

NCTM also offers webinars on math and statistics education topics.

My NCTM Member Community

The MyNCTM member community is up and running. NCTM members can use their account to connect with others in a semi-private social network to ask and answer questions, share materials, and view past webinars. Read the announcement about the community.

New NCTM Publication Available

The Common Core Mathematics Companion: The Standards Decoded, High School has been released.

ThisIsStatistics

Police Data Challenge

In the Police Data Challenge, students helped make communities safer by analyzing emergency call data from metropolitan police departments in Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Seattle. The ASA joined forces with the Police Data Initiative in this unique partnership to provide students with open and publicly accessible data sets on emergency calls, giving them an opportunity to apply their savvy statistical skills to an important cause and providing major cities with a better understanding of the value and use of statistics in public safety. Hundreds of students from across the United States participated, and the following winners were recently announced:

Best Overall Winners

• Undergraduate: Jimmy Hickey, Kapil Khanal, and Luke Peacock – Winona State University (Sponsored by Silas Bergen)
• High School: Catalina Bartholomew, Sophie Mason, Grace Ding, and Allie Restani – Valley Christian High School, San Jose, California (Sponsored by Claudia Smith)

Best Visualization Winners

• Undergraduate: Julia Nguyen, Katherine Qian, Youbeen Shim, and Catherine Sun – University of Virginia (Sponsored by Jordan Rodu)
• High School: Alex Lapuente, Ana Kenefick, and Sara Kenefick – Charlotte Latin School, Charlotte, North Carolina (Sponsored by Donna Minnig)

Best Use of External Data Winners

• Undergraduate: Luke Zheng, Qianyu Liu, Scott Lai, Sicheng Chu, and Xi He – University of Wisconsin (Sponsored by Karl Rohe)
• High School: Alaina Cerro, Sean Conroy, and Elise Bermudez – Bethel Park High School, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania (Sponsored by Lee Cristofano)

What’s Going On in This Graph?

Teaming up with The New York Times Learning Network, ThisIsStatistics developed a unique exercise, titled “What’s Going On in This Graph?” Spearheaded by ASA member Sharon Hessney, this partnership is modeled after the Times’s popular series, “What’s Going On in This Picture?” and is intended to inspire students to examine graphs, charts, or maps via a rich and robust supply of the Times’s infographics.

Each month, a different New York Times graph will be published on a topic suitable for a variety of subjects across the curriculum. Students will then be asked to use math and statistics thinking skills to answer the following questions:

• What do you notice?
• What do you wonder?
• What’s going on in this graph?

Under Hessney’s leadership, an ASA team will help select graphs to use each month, moderate discussion, engage students, and provide a ‘reveal’ at the end of the week-long session that incorporates the graph’s original title and caption and related statistical concepts and vocabulary to help students transform the data into information.

What’s Next?

Statistics Is for Everyone

Stay tuned for Statistics Is for Everyone, the latest video showcasing professionals from a variety of occupations demonstrating that everyone is connected to statistics at some point and the field can be applied to a diverse group of professions. Included in the video are the following:

• Hillary Parker, data scientist, Stitch Fix
• Dawn Eash, associate director, Berkeley Research Group
• Dave Robinson, data scientist, Stack Overflow
• Alexander Oftelie, analytics subject matter expert, IBM
• Matthew Krachey, data scientist, HomeAway

Statsketball

Statsketball returns to see who can score big and best predict the winner and brackets for March Madness.

As always, please visit ThisisStatistics for more dynamic education tools and resources to help foster statistical literacy and excitement in the next generation.