Putting Stats Projects into Practice

Over the years, one of the ways that I've grown as a stats educator is to incorporate more projects and activities into my classroom routine. I often use these projects as a cumulative assessment and as a way to summarize units. These projects can be time-consuming, but I find they are worth doing to help students assimilate information and apply statistical skills in new ways. They help make concepts more tangible, and have been a contributing factor in my students success on traditional tests like the AP exam.

I often get asked how I balance projects with the packed AP Stats curriculum, make the projects appealing for students, and ensure student success. One of the most satisfying comments I got last year from a student in regard to her final project: "Never enjoyed a project this much. It didn't even feel like a project." It has taken me a while to get the hang of how to make project-based tasks work. Now that I've done lots of rounds of them, though, I love how much it has influenced the culture of learning in my classroom.

So, here's a long overdue post to respond to these requests. (While this advice is based on my experience with statistics projects, I see no reason why they wouldn't apply to any STEM project.)

Using Data in the Science Classroom

Last December, one of my Math for America colleagues, science teacher Liz Whelan, gave a talk about how her students use real-time data to investigate research questions about local water quality.