Creating a Statistical Reasoning Learning Environment: Resources

Websites

• • Webinars of the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE)

http://www.causeweb.org/webinar/ Free monthly Web-based seminars for up to 25 statistics educators. Sessions are recorded for others to view later.

• • Burrill, G. F. (Ed.) (2006). Thinking and reasoning with data and chance: The sixty-eighth NCTM yearbook. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

This book focuses on students' and teachers' learning and reasoning about data and chance. Topics include the relationship between mathematics and statistics, the development and enrichment of mathematical concepts through the use of statistics, and a discussion of the research related to teaching and learning statistics. The accompanying CD offers support material for many of the articles, including lessons, software demonstrations, and video clips of classrooms.

• • Davis, B. G. (1993). Tools for teaching (Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

A compendium of classroom-tested strategies and suggestions designed to improve the teaching practices of all college instructors, including beginning, mid-career, and senior faculty members. The book describes 49 teaching tools that cover both traditional practical tasks – writing a course syllabus, delivering an effective lecture – as well as newer, broader concerns, such as responding to diversity on campus and coping with budget constraints.

• • Moore, D. S. (1995). The craft of teaching. Mathematical Association of America FOCUS, 15(2), 5–8. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www.stat.purdue.edu/~dsmoore/articles/Craft.pdf

This paper presents David Moore’s philosophy of teaching statistics, composed on the occasion of winning a major teaching award. David Moore is a well-known statistician (and former President of the American Statistical Association) who has had a major impact on the reform of the introductory statistics course.

• • Moore, T. L. (Ed.) (2000). Teaching statistics: Resources for undergraduate instructors. (MAA Notes Number 52). Washington DC: Mathematics Association of America.

This book is a collection of articles on various aspects of statistics education along with a collection of descriptions of several effective and innovative projects. The book opens with a classic article produced by the MAA Focus Group on Statistics Education during the infancy of the statistics education reform movement. Subsequent sections include motivation for and advice on how to use real data in teaching, how to choose a textbook at the introductory or mathematical statistics level, how to make effective use of technology, and how to more effectively assess students by going beyond the reliance on in-class examinations.

• • Shaughnessy J. M., & Chance, B. (2005). Statistical questions from the classroom. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

This small book presents eleven short discussions of some of the most frequently asked questions about statistics. Some of the questions, such as “What is the difference between a sample and a sampling distribution?” involve major concepts in statistics. Other questions such as “Why are deviations squared?” deal briefly with some of the more technical aspects of the mathematics in statistical theory. The authors offer teachers of statistics some quick insight and support in understanding these issues and explaining these ideas to their own students.