The 2017 United States Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS) will be held at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center May 18-20, 2017. The conference theme of “Show Me the DATA!” is intended to encompass many aspects of teaching statistics, including helping students to recognize that data beat anecdotes and are essential for evidence-based decision-making, emphasizing data visualization in statistics courses, embracing ideas of data science in teaching statistics, and using data as educators to make informed decisions related to effective teaching and learning.
Chis Wild of the University of Auckland will kick off the conference in the opening session on Thursday evening with his presentation titled “Oh Say, Can You See?” Plenary speakers for the conference are:
Rob Kass, Carnegie Mellon University, “The Gap Between Statistics Education and Statistical Practice”
Deb Nolan, University of California – Berkeley, “Show Me the RAW Data: Integrating Computational and Statistical Thinking”
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, Duke University, “Teaching Data Science and Statistical Computation to Undergraduates”
Jay Lehmann, College of San Mateo, “Prestatistics: Acceleration and New Hope for Non-STEM Majors”
Breakout sessions interspersed among the plenary talks are designed to promote active engagement of participants. These breakout sessions will feature a variety of topics, from data science and data visualization to teacher preparation and activity-based learning. Another highlight of the conference is the “posters and beyond” sessions in which participants present ideas for effective teaching and learning that they have developed and investigated in their own classrooms.
Fifteen pre-conference workshops provide even more opportunities for statistics teachers and education researchers to learn and exchange ideas about topics ranging from researching student attitudes to data visualization to TA training to statistics songs and much more.
Another highlight of the conference is the banquet dinner on Friday evening, featuring the presentation of the CAUSE Lifetime Achievement Award.
The USCOTS Social Media Challenge is returning with designated tasks for onsite participants to be documented through social media.
Much more information about the conference program and a registration form can be found at: www.CAUSEweb.org/uscots/. I hope to see you at Penn State in May!
Allan Rossman, 2017 USCOTS Program Chair, arossman@calpoly.edu
