In this paper, we will examine the present state of probability and statistics teaching in Japanese senior high school mathematics. We should take note that we are only concerned with probability and statistics teaching within school mathematics and not the whole area, e.g., statistics in other subjects and in other activities of school life.
This study aims to analyze the place of statistics in secondary school mathematics education and the problem areas related to statistics in training teachers of secondary school mathematics in Turkey.
I am not an expert in the theory of decision making, rather I am concerned with mathematics education and teacher training. Within the frame of this task one of my special interests is teaching statistics. Statistics - to use a definition of W. A. Wallis and H. W. Roberts - is a body of methods for making decisions in the face of uncertainty., and that is the subject of our conference.
This paper discusses the practice of teaching and research in didactics.
In the following paper, I shall investigate a fundamental relationship with regard to the particular conditions of in-service training and to the requirements of appropriate teaching material for statistics. Everything I shall describe and the material I shall present is the result of a cooperative project between mathematics teachers and researchers for the development of statistical material suitable for the in-service training and the everyday lesson planning of teachers.
Over the years I've strongly supported the federal government's role in gathering and circulating educational data because we can't make intelligent decisions without knowing how public education is doing. But getting adequate funding for data collection and research hasn't been easy. The Congress has been suspicious that this Administration, in particular, was more interested in cooking the facts to fit its ideology than in doing objective research, especially on the subject of education spending. This article shows proof that such suspicions are justified.
There is no adequate survey of ancient writing on chance, much less of its possible influences on writers in the last few centuries, and I am not the scholar to make good the deficiency. But it occurred to me that in the playful, albeit serious, spirit of Renyi's Letters, I could try to show some parallels between ideas central to my own recent work with probability models and discussions I've happened across in my recreational reading of the classics. I will refer particularly to Plutarch, who lived about A.D. 40-120 and whose surviving work is voluminous by comparison with that of almost any other ancient writer with equally broad interests. First, I note a number of general and recurring themes in Plutarch's Moralia and Lives (the two large collections of essays and biographies comprising his oeuvre) that seem to anticipate some of the topics dealt with by writers on probability in the scientific age; and then I mention in detail some specific passages in Plutarch that could be used in a didactic presentation of the probabilistic Rasch measurement model, on which my own research has been focused for the last several years. Allow me to follow Plutarch's own practice of quoting extensively from the sources.
Data analysis can be introduced at any stage during a student's school career and its introduction does not have to be restricted to contexts labeled "statistics lessons". In this paper the view is taken that wherever and whenever data analysis appears in the curriculum, the aim is that students will learn something about data analysis as a skill in its own right, as well as about its use as a tool for investigation. Some aspects of data analysis, in common with many other practical skills, may have to be learned rather than taught. The teacher's function is then to facilitate the learning process, to provide an environment in which data analysis can be carried out, to make encouraging suggestions and to stop students from going too far down a fruitless path. Often the teacher will be learning along with the students. In order to start on a program for learning data analysis, data are needed and the first part of this paper discusses what kinds of data might be suitable and how to obtain them. Suggestions are then made as to how start studying a data set and what might be done on an initial analysis.
Learning and applying the statistical thinking theories and techniques of the Deming management philosophy of Quality Improvement in introductory statistics courses can produce quality general education graduates for the 21st century. Advantages for the graduate who experiences a statistics course with emphasis using the Statistical Process Control (SPC) methodology include: a) replacing fear of mathematics with statistical critical thinking, team problem solving, and writing and communication skills that enable learning for a life time, b) statistical interpretations and analysis of data using reasoning skills that are imperative survival skills necessary for the competitive job market, c) statistical foundations with the Quality Improvement (QI) philosophy which can contribute to improving disciplines and attitudes. The implementation of this new paradigm for statistics courses will require new attitudes for both students and teachers, new methodology of management and teaching, and new context for the course.
In recent years many national bodies concerned with American education have recommended integrating topics from probability, statistics, and data analysis into the K-12 mathematics curriculum. A variety of efforts are under way to carry out these recommendations, including the ASA's Quantitative Literacy Project. This report describes another such effort. A statistician and a mathematics educator offered current high school teacher a one-semester course that would give them a background knowledge of statistics to help them implement the recommendations. In designing the course, we unearthed some resources that might be of use to others. In offering the course, we experienced a variety of successes and failures that may be of interest to anyone else considering a similar course. These experiences led us to rethink how we would teach such a course in the future and to consider alternative approaches to teacher (re)training. We describe our experience and provide a of suggestions we hope might aid in implementing the new curriculum recommendations.