Report from the 2008 Program Chair

Newsletter for the Section on Statistical Education
Volume 13, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

JSM 2008 in Denver is shaping up to be exciting for the Section on Statistical Education. We have 5 invited sessions:

1. Innovative and Controversial Approaches to Student Assessment
2. Pedagogical Issues in an Introductory Statistics Course
3. Stirring the Pot: Radical Ideas in Statistics Education
4. Teaching Introductory Statistics Online
5. Training TAs to Teach in Graduate School and Beyond

In addition, we have 12 topic-contributed sessions:

1. An Overview of K-16 Poster and Project Competitions
2. Best Practices in Statistics Training: Lessons Learned from VIGRE Programs
3. Challenges and Opportunities for Using R and Other Software in Introductory and Intermediate Probability and Statistics
4. Clickers in the Statistics Classroom
5. Collaborative Projects in Statistics Education Research
6. Getting It Real: Group Projects and Critical Thinking
7. NSF Programs Supporting Statistics Education and Strategies for Becoming a Successful Investigator
8. Research Using the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS)
9. Spanning the Globe: The Intro Stats Course as a Gateway to the Rest of the World
10. Statistical Literacy 2008
11. Teaching Ethics in the Statistics Class
12. Teaching Through Service Learning (SL) – Getting Statistics OUT of the Classroom While Enhancing Learning

We have about 50 contributed papers as well as several invited posters and many topic-contributed and regular contributed posters that you will be able to visit during JSM 2008 (over 20 posters total). This is not to mention the full slate of coffee and luncheon roundtables that Peter Westfall has organized in his role as 2009 Program Chair.

If you count up the number of possible session slots (2 on each of Sunday and Thursday and 4 on each of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday), there are 16 session slots. Between our invited and topic-contributed sessions alone, we have 17 sessions. With our contributed paper sessions, we should have about 24 sessions that will be available to choose from throughout JSM for which the Section on Statistical Education is the primary sponsor. We will also be co-sponsoring several other sessions throughout JSM. Wow!

This has all been made possible by the members of our Section who have been willing to step forward to organize a session or to contribute a paper or poster to the program. Many people have also volunteered to chair sessions, which is much appreciated. With so many sessions, I definitely needed people who were willing to chair sessions!

By the time you read this update on JSM, all of the sessions will have been organized. However, as I write this, I am waiting for the last submissions to come in before the deadline – it’s now 11:19 ET on February 4, and submissions close at midnight. As I wait for these last submissions to come in, I am proud of what we as a Section have come together to do. The program for the Section on Statistical Education at JSM 2008 in Denver is going to be fantastic! Thank you all for your help, support, and contributions to this excellent program.