I am inclined to believe that despite the different settings in which statisticians work, it is nevertheless important for them to be aware of good teaching and learning techniques, so that they may continue in their own lifelong learning, dealing with the continual increase of new information to be learned, and also so that they may teach others, whether in an academic stetting with students or in another type of setting in government or industry. To this end, I think that course work and experience in teaching should be required of all graduate students in statistics, as well as for students in other disciplines.<br><br>However, I have some concerns about teacher training programs that focus exclusively on lesson plans, syllabi, handouts, and lectures. In deeping with the suffestions for good teaching I have described, I would like to see teacher training programs help graduate students learn about the teaching and learning process, learn now to develop adn facilitate cooperative learning actrivities, become experienced with the role of assessment (and alternative forms of assessment), and learn about current ways of improce teaching in their discipline (that is, the use of software as a teaching tool, the use of pojects, and so on). The development of programs such as these could lead to a new generation of improved statistics teachers and statisticians who are able to work more effectively in any type of setting. I look forward to seeing this happen.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education