Center for Teaching
Statistics Seminar
April 24, 4-5pm
MS 5137
Andee Rubin
TERC
Software as a Learning Context:
the Case of TinkerPlots and Statistical Reasoning
Sophisticated statistical tools have made data analysis accessible to
an increasingly wide variety of people, from scientists to students,
demographers to historians. Yet, statistics is still generally
regarded as a difficult – if not impossible – topic to
understand. How can the powerful technology used for statistical
analysis be harnessed to support students’ understanding of statistical
concepts? At least two projects in the last decade have taken on this
challenge and designed educational environments that are both a tool
that can carry out statistical analyses and a tool box with which
budding analysts can try out and compare a variety of approaches to a
statistical situation.
I will discuss one of these, TinkerPlots, a statistics education tool
that can be used as early as middle school and at least through high
school. While I will describe the educational model that
TinkerPlots is based on and demonstrate some of its features, I will
focus in particular on the ways in which the software acts as a
learning context and share several examples of students and teachers
exploring statistical concepts using the TinkerPlots tool box.
Bio
Andee Rubin, Senior Scientist at TERC, has done research and
development in the fields of mathematics, technology, and online
learning for over 25 years. She has written curriculum, developed and
provided professional development, and designed software and
accompanying activities as well as studying how students and teachers
develop mathematical reasoning skills. Her research has focused on how
students and teachers develop statistical reasoning, how video can be
used to introduce ideas of movement over time to middle school
students, and how mathematics education can be integrated into informal
settings such as zoos, aquariums, and science centers.