This paper is from Session 1G: Backwards and forwards with research
which comes under Topic 1: Statistics education: Looking back, looking forward
Paper 1G2 (Monday 9th, 14:00-15:30)
Storytelling and Teaching Statistics
Presenter
- Carl Sherwood (University of Queensland, Australia)
Abstract
Storytelling as a pedagogy for learning introductory statistics concepts offers exciting opportunities, yet remains unexplored. An experiment was undertaken where three small groups of students participated in a storytelling activity involving the normal and sampling distributions. Data was generated by observing students during the activity and recording their experiences in an interview at the end of the activity. Using case study analysis, findings revealed storytelling can expose shallow learning techniques, while simultaneously helping activate students’ higher order thinking skills and deep learning. This suggests storytelling has implications for statistics students’ learning. To further investigate these preliminary findings, a new research project will scale up the experimental storytelling activity by implementing it in an introductory statistics course.