New Zealand Statistical Association Newsletter 63
March 2006
Statistics Education News
ICOTS-7, Working Cooperatively in Statistics Education, Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, July 2-7, 2006.
The International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) and the International Statistical Institute (ISI) are organising the Seventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS-7), which will be hosted by the Brazilian Statistical Association (ABE) in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, July 2-7, 2006.
Planning is now well advanced and the ICOTS-7 website at http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/icots7/icots7.php is being continually updated. It contains summaries of Topics and Sessions, abstracts for all the invited papers, contact addresses for invited speakers, session organisers, topic convenors and organising committees and much more about the conference organisation.
At the present time there are 223 invited paper, 123 contributed papers, 120 poster presentations, four special interest groups, 12 special sessions and a range of administrative meetings all contributing to a very full six day schedule. The Plenary speakers include some local people who are well known to us, namely Bryan Manly, Len Cook and Chris Wild.
The website also has information about the charm of Salvador Bahia and pictures of the guest rooms and conference facilities at the Othon Hotel where the conference is being held. Conference participants are encouraged to stay at the Othon Hotel, and enjoy views like this.
More information is available from the ICOTS-7 website at http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/icots7/icots7.php or from the ICOTS IPC Chair Carmen Batanero (batanero@ugr.es), the Programme Chair Susan Starkings (starkisa@lsbu.ac.uk), and the Scientific Secretary John Harraway (jharraway@maths.otago.ac.nz).
John Harraway
Statistics Education News
International News
ICOTS-7, Working Cooperatively in Statistics Education, Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, July 2-7, 2006. The International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) and the International Statistical Institute (ISI) are organizing the Seventh International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS-7), which will be hosted by the Brazilian Statistical Association (ABE) in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, July 2-7, 2006. All papers have been submitted. Information on the conference is available at the ICOTS web site at http://www.maths.otago.ac.nz/icots7/icots7.php.
Joint ICMI/IASE Study, Statistics Education in School Mathematics: Challenges for teaching and Teacher Education. The International Commission on Mathematics Instruction (ICMI) Executive committee invited IASE to cooperate in a joint study focused on statistics. The invitation was accepted by IASE, which proposed to merge the Study Conference with IASE’s next Roundtable Conference to be held in 2008 in Monterey, Mexico. Carmen Batenero is chair of the International Programme Committee (IPC) of the joint study. Planning is underway for this study, which will result in a book being published in 2010. Meetings of the IPC will be held at ICOTS-7 and ISI-56. For more information see: http://www.ugr.es/~icmi/iase_study.
New Publications. The Proceedings of the 2004 IASE Roundtable on Curricular Development in Statistics Education, edited by Gail Burrill and Mike Camden, is now available on the website: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications.php. The IASE Review 2005, which reports on IASE activities in 2005 is also available on this website.
Local news
The School Curriculum. The draft school mathematics and statistics curriculum will be launched in June 2006. Joint video-conferences between Wellington and Auckland have been held to discuss the statistics strand. Statisticians and teachers have been involved in these discussions. If you are interested in participating then please email Maxine (m.pfannkuch@auckland.ac.nz).
The CensusAtSchool Project. This project, sponsored by the Department of Statistics, University of Auckland, Statistics New Zealand, and the Ministry of Education, was launched on August 15, 2005 and the funding period has now been completed. The project was co-directed by Chris Wild and Rachel Cunliffe and aimed not only to give students the experience of participating in a census but also to provide rich classroom resources for Years 5 to 10 students using the CensusAtSchool data. These classroom resources are based on the proposed new statistics curriculum. For more information, photos, press releases, news clips and exciting new classroom resources see: http://www.censusatschool.org.nz/. The project will continue to the extent that it can on volunteer efforts and any further funding.
Year 13 Statistics Teacher Development. Palmerston North, Dunedin and Wellington teachers were given a workshop day on the teaching of the Year 13 course Statistics and Modelling by Matt Regan recently. The materials he used were from past annual Year 13 statistics days presented by Auckland University lecturers. For more information and access to these resources see: http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~u47510x/teachers/index6.php.
Maxine Pfannkuch
Statistics Education DVD
A special session on statistics education was organised at the Dunedin NZSA Conference last year. Seven researchers at the University of Otago spoke about their research and illustrated the statistical procedures used in their work. This was filmed during the conference with the aim of making a DVD, and subsequently re-recorded in a studio environment. The second takes should be completed by about the end of March, with only two remaining to be filmed at the moment.
Since then Statistics New Zealand has also recorded two clips, which means nine case studies will be included in the final DVD.
The DVD of the talks is being produced by the Staff in the Higher Education Development Unit at the University of Otago. It will be available for use in all high schools in New Zealand, to assist in motivating the teaching of statistics. The corresponding data sets will also be available on an accompanying CD. John Harraway is already using this resource in his STAT110 lectures!
This project is supported by a grant of $750 from the Campbell Fund, and is being coordinated by John Harraway.
John Harraway