B2D: Teaching applications: Enhancing statistics instruction for secondary preservice teachers

Abstract

There is an increased number of statistics standards embedded within high school mathematics courses, such as a second course in algebra. Yet, many secondary teachers complete their undergraduate degree without having a deep understanding of these statistics content standards and perceive their undergraduate study as disconnected from the practice of teaching. Our research study which focused on teaching statistics within a second course in high school algebra supported this finding, as many in-service secondary teachers reported they had few opportunities to develop their statistical knowledge for teaching during their teacher preparation program. This session invites those who have a role in the statistical preparation of secondary pre-service teachers, and we recommend participants bring a computer to the session. During the session we will share results from our research study and engage participants in ways they can support secondary pre-service teachers enrolled in an introductory statistics course in learning statistics content and in learning to teach statistics. Participants will work through and discuss various teaching applications, statistical tasks that attend to the dual goals of developing pre-service teachers’ understanding of statistics content and practices and an understanding of teaching statistics. These materials are the result of the 4-year NSF funded project, the Mathematical Education of Teachers as an Application of Undergraduate Mathematics (META Math). We’ll conclude the session by sharing design principles used to create these teaching applications and give participants an opportunity to discuss how they can create their own to use in their courses with secondary pre-service teachers.