Last year, we talked about the importance of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining in light of the ever increasing amounts of data available throughout the world. Back then, these were the hottest skills; and this year--according to LinkedIn--they can still get you hired. And this Money article agrees, SAS skills not only can get you hired, but paid well too. Here's the challenge for the classroom: find creative ways to expose students to the real world of data and the importance of analysis. Why? So that information and knowledge derived from data can drive decision-making. That's where we think Problem- and Project-Based Learning (the PBL in our title) fits nicely.
PBL offers a model that drives student engagement and improves learning. It also places students in real-world contexts that prepare them for college and careers.
The Buck Institute for Education is a leader in preparing teachers to deliver Project-Based Learning and has been leading the community to develop a Gold Standard for PBL. Watch below as John Mergendoller introduces the Gold Standard.
This summer a group of teachers from Wake County Public Schools is getting hands-on experience at area businesses as part of Wake Ed Partnership's SummerSTEM program. Teachers will be combining their business experiences with their professional development training in PBL to enrich student learning in the coming year.
Teachers will be immersed in a world of data known as the Internet of Things. Attendees will be surrounded by sensors gathering data throughout the day on everything from weather to fitness. To help make sense of all that data, teachers will launch a crash course on SAS® University Edition, free for teaching and learning SAS skills (get it here). The course will use data the attendees collect throughout day. Teachers will then work on an outcome to dynamically illustrate their day, through media using charts, graphs, and pictures of the data. We hope this will illustrate one idea for incorporating data into PBL lessons across classrooms this fall.
WNCN came out and captured a nice story of #SummerSTEM2016 too. Check out this link for a recap: http://wncn.com/2016/07/17/wake-county-educators-learn-innovative-ways-to-teach-in-summerstem-program/.
- “Medicine by Numbers” in The Economist, March 7, 2015, http://www.economist.com/node/21645510/print
- “Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the AP Statistics Exam” in Amstat News, May 2016, , http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2016/05/02/pres-may16/
- "Statistician Projected as Top 10 Fastest-Growing Job”, January 18, 2016 press release from the American Statistical Association, https://www.amstat.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2016_BLS_Statistician_Employment_News.pdf
- Census at School resources for teachers provided by the American Statistical Association at https://www.amstat.org/censusatschool/
- THIS Is Statistics, the American Statistical Association website for students, parents, educators and counselors, at http://thisisstatistics.org/
- (twitter) SASGF Smart House tweets https://twitter.com/SASGFSmartHouse
Code Snaps Activity:
- check sascurriculumpathways.com later this summer for news and updates!
Danny's Talk (Danny.Modlin@sas.com):
- (attendees please see Google Drive)
- (software) SAS University Edition
- (data) SAS Curriculum Pathways Data Depot
- (training) 200+ training videos
- (community) SAS Analytics U community