Michelle Wilkerson (University of California, Berkeley)
Abstract
With the advent of AI, automated tools, and the daily stresses of instruction, it can be difficult to remember just how powerful and surprising human learning with data can be. This talk aims to remind us of the joy of teaching, by focusing on a central question: What can data and computing allow students to think, do, and learn in their classes and in their lives?
Drawing from over a decade of research with secondary students, teachers, and undergraduates across disciplines, I will share activities and case studies where students working with data are surprised, consider new perspectives, and dig deeper. We will look at discussion protocols that invite deep reading of visualizations and the real-world issues they describe; explore student-constructed narratives that integrate statistical patterns with the human stories behind the analysis decisions; and explore case studies where unexpected findings forced students to completely rethink their hypotheses. These examples will offer a vision of what it can look like to spark joy and discovery with data, and offer concrete examples that speak directly to how other upcoming keynote themes of storytelling, instructional design, and interdisciplinarity can make an impact far beyond the statistics classroom.
Bio: Michelle H. Wilkerson is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and the Graduate Group in Mathematics and Science Education at the University of California, Berkeley where she directs the Computing, Reasoning, and Expression (“CoRE”) Lab. Wilkerson conducts basic and applied research that explores how computing practices (e.g., programming, data analysis and visualization, computer simulation, GIS mapping) are changing the ways that young people learn and communicate about our world.