By Jennifer Clinkenbeard (California State University Monterey Bay)
Information
An undergraduate mathematics methods course at California State Monterey Bay for liberal studies students who plan to become elementary school teachers was recently redesigned to include a 5-week content unit on data science. This unit utilizes YouCubed's Data Life Cycle as the guiding principle throughout. In this poster, we describe the course design, key activities and learning outcomes, and a student-driven data science project. We also present preliminary findings from a pre- and post- survey given to the students about their attitudes and experiences with data science. This survey tool is an adaptation of MASDER (Motivational Attitudes in Statistics and Data Science Education) validated instruments, with items constructed in collaboration with the MASDER team. California State Monterey Bay is a primarily undergraduate institution of about 8,000 students. Students in the study are junior and senior liberal studies majors who plan to become elementary school teachers. Many are in an integrated undergraduate and credential program, meaning they have an accelerated course of study to earn their credential. Typical class size is 28 students, with four sections of the course, for an anticipated total of about 112 participants in the research study component.