This paper is from Session 1F: Statistics as a Liberal Art and the Real World
which comes under Topic 1: Statistics education: Looking back, looking forward
Paper 1F1 (Thursday 12th, 11:00-12:30)
Rethinking the statistics curriculum: Holistic, purposeful and layered
Presenter
- Katie Makar (University of Queensland, Australia)
Abstract
Bakker and Derry (MTL 13:1, 2011) challenged the field to address three persistent problems in statistics education—students’ difficulty in applying what they learn due to inert knowledge, lack of coherence from the students’ perspective due to an atomistic approach, and sequencing of curriculum which does not build students’ understanding in a coherent way. To address these challenges, a rethinking of school statistics curriculum is needed. This paper outlines three principles to move forward: focusing on holistic learning through informal statistical inference, purposeful tasks which use an inquiry approach, and a layered curriculum that provides students with experiences that informally access powerful statistical tools years before they are formalised. The principles align with recent studies in statistics education.