W08: Show Me How to Use Interactive Statistics Songs!


Dennis Pearl (Penn State University); Larry Lesser (University of Texas at El Paso); and John Weber (Perimeter College at Georgia State University)


Schedule

Thursday, May 18 at 1:00 p.m. to Thursday, May 18 at 4:00 p.m.

Abstract

This hands-on, no-prerequisite exploration of interactive songs for teaching and learning introductory statistics will follow this order:

  1. Brief discussion of the use and value of fun items, and songs in particular, in teaching introductory statistics (informed by readings provided in advance).
  2. Build to progressively more interactive statistics songs that can be used in the classroom or online - and discover the new idea of Student-Made Interactive Learning with Educational Songs (SMILES) that uses content-relevant inputs from students to generate songs, loosely modeled after the popular word template game known as Mad Libs.
  3. Experience first-hand how a particular example of such a song could be used in the introductory statistics classroom.
  4. Whole group opportunity to discuss and critique the student experience and effectiveness for learning of an interactive song.
  5. Team-based opportunity to create a mini-lesson plan on different songs to share with the whole group. No one will be singled out to sing, but everyone will have the chance to have SMILES!
  6. Discuss initial implementation of SMILES in introductory statistics labs at Penn State and Georgia State and how to move forward given lessons learned.

This workshop supported by the NSF-funded (DUE EHR 1544426/1544237/1544243) Project SMILES for introductory statistics. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to partner (and be supported) in field trials or in developing new materials for this innovation.