Webinars

A new form of pedagogical approach was thrust upon us by the pandemic – online classrooms; a concept that was never experienced or experimented to the extent that was witnessed in the past few months. The challenges involved in online teaching are many, especially for a discipline like statistics which is essential for students undergoing courses in science, health science as well as social sciences. The challenges can be anything, including difficulty in comprehending foundational concepts through virtual classrooms, lack of availability of technical tools such as electronic gadgets or internet coverage, lack of online teaching tools and resources, absence of appropriate technical knowhow which can hinder the ease of communication between the facilitators and students, and lack of appropriate evaluation of student performances. The extent of these challenges may vary from region to region and would depend upon socio-economic profiles of the places. However, the global academic fraternity in the statistics community is committed to effective dissemination of statistics content and knowledge to students from multiple disciplines amid these changed circumstances. In such a scenario, it will be both important as well as informative to have a platform for experience sharing of experts from around the world. This will not only help us exchange information regarding multiple academic approaches and evaluation aids successfully implemented by the statistics fraternity, but also provide significant insights into the availability of shared resources and identify what worked well in different geographical regions.

In the March CAUSE/Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education webinar series we will discuss two related papers on data ingestation, data collection, and data analysis.   Mine Dogucu (UC Irvine) will discuss her paper "Web Scraping in the Statistics and Data Science Curriculum: Challenges and Opportunities" (https://github.com/mdogucu/web-scrape). Albert Y. Kim (Smith College) will discuss his paper "'Playing the Whole Game': A Data Collection and Analysis Exercise With Google Calendar" (https://smithcollege-sds.github.io/sds-www/JSE_calendar.html) Mine Dogucu is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Statistics at University of California Irvine. Her work focuses on modern pedagogical approaches in the statistics curriculum, making data science education accessible, and undergraduate Bayesian education. She is the coauthor of the upcoming book Bayes Rules! An Introduction to Bayesian Modeling with R. She co-chairs the Undergraduate Statistics Project Competition and the Electronic Undergraduate Statistics Research Conference (USPROC+eUSR). She shares her thoughts about data science education on her Data Pedagogy blog. Albert Kim is an Assistant Professor of Statistical & Data Sciences at Smith College as well as a Visiting Scholar at the ForestGEO network's Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) large forest dynamics plot. His research centers on forest ecology, in particular modeling the impact of climate change on the growth of trees as well as ecological forecasting. He is a co-author of "Statistical Inference via Data Science: A ModernDive into R and the Tidyverse" (see moderndive.com).

The Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education recently published a cluster of papers on Bayesian methods (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ujse20/28/3?nav=tocList). The Bayesian cluster includes a presentation of how and why Bayesian ideas should be added to the curriculum; guidance on how to structure a semester-long Bayesian course for undergraduates; a discussion of the ever-evolving nature of Bayesian computing; a book review; and a panel interview of several Bayesian educators. For the February CAUSE/JSDSE webinar series, we’ve invited several authors of these provocative and informative articles to describe their work and its implications for statistics and data science education. Jingchen (Monika) Hu is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Vassar College. She teaches an undergraduate-level Bayesian Statistics course at Vassar, which is shared online across several liberal arts colleges. Her research focuses on dealing with data privacy issues by releasing synthetic data. Kevin Ross is an Associate Professor of Statistics at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His research interests include probability, stochastic processes and applications as well as probability and statistics education. Colin Rundel is a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and an assistant professor of the practice in Statistical Science at Duke University. His research interests include applied spatial statistics with an emphasis on Bayesian statistics and computational methods.

Statistics is more important than ever in today's data-driven world. This is reflected in the increased level of statistics understanding expected of K-12 students according to the CCSS-M and state-level standards. To develop middle and high school teachers' statistical knowledge for teaching, the MODULE(S^2) project has created curriculum materials for use in introductory statistics course(s) that preservice secondary teachers take. The materials develop preservice teachers’  subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge for teaching statistics as well as their equity literacy. In this webinar, we will provide an introduction to these materials including examples of statistical tasks and classroom videos from the materials. Alignment of these materials with ASA’s GAISE, ASA’s Statistical Education of Teachers report, and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educator's Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics will be highlighted. Also, we are recruiting faculty to be piloters for the materials. To find sample materials, visit https://modules2.com/statistics/, and to indicate you are interested in piloting, please fill out the form at https://modules2.com/use-our-materials/.

The Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education special issue on “Computing in the Statistics and Data Science Curriculum” features a set of papers that provide a mosaic of curricular innovations and approaches that embrace computing. The collected papers (1) suggest creative structures to integrate computing, (2) describe novel data science skills and habits, and (3) propose ways to teach computational thinking. In this webinar, we've invited two authors of papers in the special issue to talk about their work and to answer questions originally posed by Nolan and Temple Lang in their 2010 TAS paper "Computing in the Statistics Curriculum": When they graduate, what ought our students be able to do computationally, and are we preparing them adequately in this regard? Do we provide students the essential skills needed to engage in statistical problem solving and keep abreast of new technologies as they evolve? Do our students build the confidence needed to overcome computational challenges to, for example, reliably design and run a synthetic experiment or carry out a comprehensive data analysis? Overall, are we doing a good job preparing students who are ready to engage in and succeed at statistical inquiry?

For the past four years, teams of Penn State statistics and data science undergraduates have spent the summer and fall developing apps for teaching statistical concepts. Their work has culminated in over 60 apps as part of the Book of Apps for Statistics Teaching (BOAST). This webinar will share some details of the project and give some of the students the opportunity to highlight some of the newest apps they have developed. Visit: https://shinyapps.science.psu.edu

Many areas of clinical research, such as comparative effectiveness research and patient-centered outcomes research, strongly depend on making causal inferences from observational data. Further, these topic areas also utilize pragmatic trials and quasi-experimental designs, where consistent estimation of causal effects is also more challenging than traditional randomized controlled trials, and/or involves distinct approaches for intention-to-treat versus as-treated or per-protocol effects. While substantial literature exists on associated designs and analysis strategy, the corresponding methods are complex and not always taught in formal training, even within graduate statistics or biostatistics programs. Therefore, a critical need exists for accessible educational resources and the expansion of relevant courses and training programs. Regarding that goal, however, significant debate exists on whether these advanced methods should even be taught at all to non-statisticians, and/or researchers with more limited statistical training (e.g. a fundamental course and some background in regression). This talk proposes some possible perspectives to effectively address these concerns, while still avoiding the result of "knowing enough to be dangerous". The presenter has some related links at www.landsittellab.pitt.edu. This work was supported by AHRQ grant R25HS023185, PCORI contract R-IMC-1306-03827, and supplemental funding from the NIH/NLM grant 5 T15 LM007059-32.

The TSHS Resources Portal (www.causeweb.org/tshs) contains datasets from 13 real health sciences research studies. Each dataset is accompanied by a study description and a data dictionary. Most are linked to a published paper as well. These datasets, plus some extra teaching tools, are peer reviewed and ready for use with your learners. In this webinar, Amy and Carol will walk through what is available and how to get the most out of this resource.

We are living in a world full of multivariate observational data. Qualitative assumptions about the data generating process, operationalised in simple directed acyclic graph can help students to understand multivariate phenomena like Simpson's or Berkson's paradox, confounding and bias. By teaching causal inference the introductory course can overcome the mantra "correlation does not imply causation". The webinar discusses some motivation as well as teaching ideas and the integration in the curriculum.

Over the past 10 years we have adopted a variety of new teaching methods to make both our in-person and our online introductory biostatistics courses more active, relevant and effective. These include the flipped classroom approach, active learning, collaborative answer keys, and group projects using “The Islands”. The virtual world of The Islands, created by Michael Bulmer at the University of Queensland, allows students to actually do research (and statistics) from start to finish by designing, executing, analyzing and reporting the results of a “real” study on virtual people. We have collaborated with Dr. Bulmer to add features to The Islands (such as clinics and hospitals) to facilitate health-related research studies, both experimental and observational. Carrying out an Island study provides students with sometimes painful but nevertheless invaluable experience in many aspects of research, including study design, data collection, teamwork, data analysis, and communicating research results to others. This webinar will describe The Islands and how we use them for student projects and will discuss the benefits and challenges of these projects, both for students and for instructors. Webinar Recap: https://tshsblog.wixsite.com/main/single-post/2020/05/01/TSHS-Spring-Webinar-Recap-Explore-The-Islands