May 28th – 30th, 2015
The next United States Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS) will be held at the Penn Stater Conference Center and Hotel May 28–30, 2015, and hosted by the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE). The USCOTS’15 Program Committee is seeking ideas for active, participant-focused breakout sessions addressing the conference theme, “Making Connections.” This conference is designed to model good teaching in its sessions, social activities, and hallways. As with previous USCOTS, this conference will consist of plenary sessions, breakout sessions, and “poster and beyond” sessions. These sessions will address how to make connections in four main areas: curriculum, pedagogy, resources, and educational research. Examples of the types of connections that will be addressed include those that directly benefit students and teachers:
Students
- Making connections with fellow students, both face-to-face and virtually
- Making connections among course concepts, methods, and applications (e.g., between the use of randomness [random sampling or random assignment] in collecting data, the scope of conclusion that can be drawn from the study [generalizability, causation], and the role of randomness conducting statistical inference related to the study)
- Making connections with earlier educational experiences (e.g., statistical concepts learned in high school)
- Making connections with material learned in other courses (e.g., in science or social science courses in the student’s major)
- Making connections with later educational experiences
- Making connections with news reports in popular media
Teachers
The P&B session provides an opportunity for conference participants to display a poster of their ideas or provide a small demonstration of their favorite examples, activities, and teaching methods. Abstracts for posters or demonstrations in the USCOTS Posters and Beyond session submitted before Sunday, February 1st, 2015 at 11:59pm will receive feedback from the session organizers by Wednesday, March 4, 2015. Final abstracts should be submitted by Wednesday, April 1, 2015 at 11:59pm. Abstracts submitted between February 1 and April 1 will be considered for selection, but will not receive feedback from the session organizers.
- Making connections with other instructors of the same course, with instructors of quantitative courses in client disciplines, or with statistics teachers at other institutions
- Making connections with practicing statisticians and other professionals who use statistical ideas and methods
- Making connections with former students and employers
- Making connections with education professionals with expertise in educational research and educational technology and other areas