This paper is from Session 3A: Professional development of teachers
which comes under Topic 3: Learning to teach statistics
(Thursday 15th, 14:00-16:00)
Statistics teacher of the new era: another specialized mathematician or a totally different person?
Presenter
Co-authors
Abstract
The majority of mathematics teachers have received a purely formalistic education, with little, if any, specific training in probability and statistics. Their formalist mathematical background has a negative effect on their statistical reasoning and their development as teachers of statistics. In the paper, we describe EarlyStatistics, an online professional development course in statistics education targeting European elementary and middle school mathematics teachers. To help teachers go beyond procedural understanding of statistics, the course emphasizes statistical problem-solving. Through participation in projects, experiments, computer explorations with real and simulated data, group work and discussions, participating teachers learn where the “big ideas of statistics apply and how, and develop a variety of methodologies and resources for their effective instruction.
