Julia Silge
Information
The best moments in a statistics classroom come from discovery, when a student wrestles a messy dataset into shape, sees a pattern emerge in a plot, and genuinely wonders why. In a world increasingly shaped by AI, the tools we put in front of students can either crowd out those moments or make room for them. Positron is a next generation data science IDE from Posit, the creators of RStudio, Quarto, Shiny, and the tidyverse. It offers first-class interactive support for both Python and R and is built to keep students close to their data. In this software demonstration, we'll review Positron's core capabilities, including the Data Explorer, Variables pane, and Plots, and then see it in action through several teaching examples in both languages. We'll also take a hands-on look at how Positron's optional AI code assistance can support discovery rather than short-circuit learning. Positron is available as a free desktop app or, with a free teaching license, in server environments like JupyterHub or Open OnDemand. These options give institutions a consistent, reproducible environment for the whole class, letting students launch Positron with no local install. You'll leave this demo with concrete, practical ideas for teaching with Positron.