USI lands funding for data science, statistics collab
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $2.5 million collaborative research grant to a group of higher education institutions, including the University of Southern Indiana. The funding will support a project to enhance undergraduate teacher preparation with a focus on data science and statistics.
The USI Mathematical Sciences Department will receive $175,000 for the project, titled “Collaborative Research: Enhancing Data Science and Statistics Teacher Education – Transforming and Building Community.”
The project is a collaboration among USI, North Carolina State University, Eastern Michigan University, and the Concord Consortium, a research and development organization based in Massachusetts.
USI says the project will focus on how teachers are prepared to address careers relying “on the ability to make data-informed decisions.”
As part of the effort, the partners will collect and analyze data on the current state of teacher preparation, including early-career secondary math teachers and preparation programs for math teachers.
Additionally, the project aims to create partnerships with national organizations to build a teacher education network that will provide professional development opportunities for faculty members who prepare future teachers.
“We will enhance and expand our existing modules to develop materials in support of mathematics teacher educators and establish a web-based hub to share teacher education resources,” Dr. Rick Hudson, chair of the USI Mathematical Sciences Department, said in a news release. “We will also enhance capabilities of the Concord Consortium’s Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP), a tool for teaching with statistics to better support data modeling and sampling simulations.”
Hudson, who serves as co-principal investigator on the project, says the team will develop, curate and disseminate data science and statistics teacher education curriculum materials at the end of the effort.
The $2.5 million grant is valid for five years.