Integrating Computing into the Statistics Curricula

This project is a continued effort to explicitly address how we can integrate various aspects of computing into the statistics curricula, for both undergraduate and graduate programs. The aim is to facilitate professors/instructors in different universisties and colleges to both

introduce new statistical/scientific computing courses, and also
increase the use of computing within existing courses.

The primary aim is to teach computing as an additional dimension of the statistics program, and not just to leverage it as a medium by which to teach "traditional" statistical topics. Nor are we focusing on using computing within the introductory statistics class within this project.

While the project focuses on teaching computing content, we also feel that this is a suitable vehicle for

exposing students to modern statistical methods in a heuristic fashion that illustrates that statistics is a dynamic and changing field with relevance and many recent advances, and
doing case studies and more involved data analyses from beginning to end than students typically see in methodology classes

We believe this combination of topical problem-based data analysis, new methodology and rich computing and visualization is important for statistical education and practice in this era of multi-disciplinary, data-centric scientific collaboration. We also feel that it will help to attract talented students from different sources than we have previously drawn from and to retain existing students who are interested in ensuring that statistics and data analysis have an impact on science and knowledge discovery.

Motivation

It is of course obvious that all statistical analyses are done via a computer, and that technology and computing advances dramatically influence statistical practice. Yet very few programs teach students more than elementary utilitarian computing skills.

Deliverables

The tangible outputs from this project include

Sample syllabi for different courses. See also links to courses at Links to existing courses. Resources for teaching - lecture notes, exercises/homeworks/projects/case-studies, Materials from Workshop 2 Wiki Suggested taxonomy of computing topics Workshops Workshop (07) on Curriculum Development Workshop (08) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing Workshop (09) on Developing Curricular Materials Workshop (10) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing Papers to evangelize computing, technologies & data analysis within the community Computing in the Statistics Curricula , under revision for The American Statistician. Comment on Brown and Kass TAS article What is Statistics?, The American Statistician, 2009, 63:117-121. Approaches to Broadening the Statistics Curricula Chapter in Quality research in literacy and science education: International perspectives and gold standards, M. C. Shelley II, L. D. Yore, & B. Hand (Eds.), Springer, 2008. Talks (also to evangelize) JSM 2008, session 1, Designing Courses on Statistical Computing Working with instructors in various institutions to introduce and implement model classes, Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.
Resources for teaching - lecture notes, exercises/homeworks/projects/case-studies, Materials from Workshop 2 Wiki Suggested taxonomy of computing topics Workshops Workshop (07) on Curriculum Development Workshop (08) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing Workshop (09) on Developing Curricular Materials Workshop (10) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing Papers to evangelize computing, technologies & data analysis within the community Computing in the Statistics Curricula , under revision for The American Statistician. Comment on Brown and Kass TAS article What is Statistics?, The American Statistician, 2009, 63:117-121. Approaches to Broadening the Statistics Curricula Chapter in Quality research in literacy and science education: International perspectives and gold standards, M. C. Shelley II, L. D. Yore, & B. Hand (Eds.), Springer, 2008. Talks (also to evangelize) JSM 2008, session 1, Designing Courses on Statistical Computing Working with instructors in various institutions to introduce and implement model classes, Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.: Materials from Workshop 2
Wiki
Suggested taxonomy of computing topics
Workshops Workshop (07) on Curriculum Development Workshop (08) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing Workshop (09) on Developing Curricular Materials Workshop (10) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing Papers to evangelize computing, technologies & data analysis within the community Computing in the Statistics Curricula , under revision for The American Statistician. Comment on Brown and Kass TAS article What is Statistics?, The American Statistician, 2009, 63:117-121. Approaches to Broadening the Statistics Curricula Chapter in Quality research in literacy and science education: International perspectives and gold standards, M. C. Shelley II, L. D. Yore, & B. Hand (Eds.), Springer, 2008. Talks (also to evangelize) JSM 2008, session 1, Designing Courses on Statistical Computing Working with instructors in various institutions to introduce and implement model classes, Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.: Workshop (07) on Curriculum Development
Workshop (08) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing
Workshop (09) on Developing Curricular Materials
Workshop (10) for Instructors who want to teach Statistical Computing
Papers to evangelize computing, technologies & data analysis within the community Computing in the Statistics Curricula , under revision for The American Statistician. Comment on Brown and Kass TAS article What is Statistics?, The American Statistician, 2009, 63:117-121. Approaches to Broadening the Statistics Curricula Chapter in Quality research in literacy and science education: International perspectives and gold standards, M. C. Shelley II, L. D. Yore, & B. Hand (Eds.), Springer, 2008. Talks (also to evangelize) JSM 2008, session 1, Designing Courses on Statistical Computing Working with instructors in various institutions to introduce and implement model classes, Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.: Computing in the Statistics Curricula , under revision for The American Statistician.
Comment on Brown and Kass TAS article What is Statistics?, The American Statistician, 2009, 63:117-121.
Approaches to Broadening the Statistics Curricula Chapter in Quality research in literacy and science education: International perspectives and gold standards, M. C. Shelley II, L. D. Yore, & B. Hand (Eds.), Springer, 2008.
Talks (also to evangelize) JSM 2008, session 1, Designing Courses on Statistical Computing Working with instructors in various institutions to introduce and implement model classes, Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.: JSM 2008, session 1, Designing Courses on Statistical Computing
Working with instructors in various institutions to introduce and implement model classes, Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.
Text book on Data Technologies for Statistics.

Acknowledgements

This project is supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant DUE 0618865 and DMS DMS 0636667.

Last modified: Sat Mar 7 14:03:50 PDT 2009