This paper is from Session 3E: Professional development of statistics instructors

which comes under Topic 3: Education and development of staff who teach statistics

Implementing GAISE recommendations through “doing statistics” tasks

Presenter

• Brandon Hanson (Middle Tennessee State University, United States)

Co-authors

• Jeffrey Pair (Middle Tennessee State University, United States)
• Jeremy Strayer (Middle Tennessee State University, United States)
• Jessica Brown (Middle Tennessee State University, United States)
• Katherine Mangione (Middle Tennessee State University, United States)

Abstract

The Pre-K-12 GAISE report identifies four components of statistical problem solving: formulate questions, collect data, analyze data, and interpret results. Traditional tasks often require the teachers, not the students, to complete a significant portion of one or more of these components. To meet the need for students to engage in the complete statistical process, we have developed tasks that require students to make critical decisions for all four GAISE components. We term these doing statistics tasks. This paper describes our implementation of doing statistics tasks with grades 7-12 in-service mathematics and science teachers during a professional development institute in the summer of 2013. We present an analysis of work samples that illustrate the ways in which doing statistics tasks enabled participants to engage in all four components of statistical problem solving.