Teaching and Learning Data Science Beyond the Classroom

Please reflect on and share something about your experience teaching and learning data science in environments other than a classroom, such as professional development workshops, community outreach activities, and self-study. Some starting points for reflection may include:

  • Why were you interested in teaching or learning that topic? How do you hope that this knowledge will be applied?
  • What did you expect to get out of the experience? Did it meet your expectation?
  • Was the environment appropriate to your teaching or learning goals? Why or why not?
  • Would you participate in the activity again? Why or why not?

Please do not publicly call out people by name. This forum is indexed publicly by search engines, and damage to someone’s reputation may extend far beyond this community.

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This past summer, I co-led a workshop called Project IDEEM – Infusing Data Science Education into Elementary Mathematics for TK-5 teachers from Fullerton Elementary and Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District. We had 23 teachers over four days, and it was an amazing workshop.

You can read about it on the CSUF News Update.

*** Why were you interested in teaching or learning that topic? How do you hope that this knowledge will be applied?**

I am always interested in supporting TK-8 teachers of mathematics, as this is what got me into my role as a math educator. When I learned of a funding opportunity from the California State University Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach to provide professional development on the topic of data, it was right around the time of our second or thirdd PIPE-LINE workshop. I asked Jessica Jaynes, Cherie Ichinose, and Mallika Scott if they’d be willing to team up with me. Given my strong preparation with PIPE-LINE, I felt incredibly ready to lead and learn from local elementary teachers.

*** What did you expect to get out of the experience? Did it meet your expectation?**

I expected to spend time teaching local teachers about data science. I had not expected that they are already doing so much with teaching their students about data. We focused on applying a data life cycle framework to their classrooms. I was not expecting to see so many rich examples of instances of using data already. The experience surpassed my expectation in the best of ways.

*** Would you participate in the activity again? Why or why not?**

I cannot wait to do it again in Summer 2025. Let me know if any of you are interested in observing any part of it! Also, if you know of any TK-5 teachers in the Fullerton, Norwalk, or La Mirada areas, please send them my way!

Information can be found at IDEEM.

For anyone interested in learning more about preliminary findings of this experience, please see the following:

the slides: https://docs.google.com/…/10xNElPtrryzwRU…/mobilepresent

the recording (starts at around ten minutes in): https://fullerton.zoom.us/…/gpDzbPHUQN0D05mp2ryqMKeGLle…
Passcode: .58hnm^U

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