RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Pictured at RSSCSE events week in Plymouth; from left to right: Adrian Bowman, David Spiegelhalter, Will McBurnie, David Hand, Julian Stander, Ken and Wendy Foster (Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Plymouth) and Neville Davies.    

The RSS Centre for Statistical Education moved from Nottingham to Plymouth in August. Its director Neville Davies reports on a week of events to commemorate the move.          

Over 200 people gathered in Plymouth during the week of 16-20 November for a Statistical Education Week to mark the occasion of the move of the RSSCSE from Nottingham Trent University to the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth earlier in the year. The weather was unusually mild and, for once in a part of the world that is much influenced by the surrounding coastal waters and ocean beyond, there was little rain. As one colleague was overheard to say, ‘the RSSCSE has embarked on a sea-change in venue and the rain has held off.'   

The week was devoted to discussing and presenting ways to improve statistical education. The first four days were dedicated to considering how to do this in the workplace, schools and colleges, higher education and through using software. On the fifth day three keynote speakers, David Hand, David Spiegelhalter and Adrian Bowman, discussed novel ways to enthuse, inform and educate people of all ages about statistics. Neville Davies rounded off the week by discussing the Centre's plans to improve statistical education over the next five years.   

On Day 1 the workshops were led by Isaac Newton, the lead trainer for Minitab, Nicola Tilt, senior statistician and head of the Statistics Training Programme in Europe for Proctor and Gamble, Shirley Coleman, head of the Industrial Statistics Research Unit, Newcastle University and Trevor Lewis, statistics consultant and chair of the RSS professional development centre. There was general agreement that a key way to engage employers and employees with statistics is through addressing the many misconceptions that they have about the subject, by carrying out the training through ‘knowing your audience’ and proceeding at a pace that is suitable for each trainee. It is very important to emphasise the need for continuing professional development even at the most basic level of training in statistics, for example, by using informal inference from data and graphical presentations.   

Day 2 turned out to be vibrant, stimulating and thought provoking. It was devoted to helping teachers in schools and colleges to consider how they could improve statistical education in their teaching. Over 90 teachers, teacher trainees and senior colleagues from local and national organisations attended. They had the choice of 12 interactive workshops in four parallel sessions. These comprised:     

• the Autograph software (Douglas Butler)     
• research and development in understanding risk (Dave Pratt)     
• the CensusAtSchool, ExperimentsAtSchool and RowingAtSchool projects (Kate Richards, Mark Crowley and Tom Kay)     
• teaching data handling in primary school (Ceri Speed)      
• the new Project and Extended Project for post-GCSE students (Gareth Pierce)    
• the SMART software for data visualisation (James Nicholson)      
• activities in school about ecological footprints (John Schrouder and Debra Hurcomb)     
• akeshi’s Castle (Ted Graham)     
• playing with statistics (Carrie Headlam)      
• the new innovative RSS-accredited Certificate in Teaching Statistics up to Pre-University Level (Neil Sheldon).    

Feedback from the participants on the teachers day was very encouraging. A summary of these can be found on the RSSCSE website, but four comments that were typical of the many received are:      

• excellent day – each session I saw was very thought provoking and excellent      
• very interesting day that served to underline the interactive possibilities of teaching stats in school     
• excellent primary presentation, wonderful to see video of young children discussing data    
• a regular event please.    

Day 3 involved discussing software that is available for both doing and teaching statistics at all levels. A second sparkling session on using Autograph for teaching statistics and mathematics in schools was delivered by Douglas Butler, the software's creator. Julian Stander and Paul Hewson presented separate sessions on using R in teaching at an introductory and advanced level respectively. These sessions were very well received, with several participants declaring that they were motivated to go away and learn more about using R in their teaching. Doug Stirling, the creator of CAST (Computer Aided Statistics Textbooks), showed novel ways to teach statistics using his freely available electronic textbook resource. Afterwards there was discussion about how this resource could be dynamically linked to software for doing statistics, such as Minitab, R and SPSS. It was felt that such a link could create a particularly useful teaching and learning resource marrying teaching, learning and doing in one electronic environment.   

Day 4 was devoted to improving statistical education in higher education. David Green and Alun Owen described plans to create an electronic resource designed to help non-specialist students to understand and carry out statistical applications within parts of projects in other subjects such as psychology, science and business. John Marriott demonstrated how engaging students through topics they wanted to talk about in class could be used to define questions that they could then address using a problem solving approach. Gill Lancaster discussed the breadth and diversity of the many activities of the Post-Graduate Statistics Centre at the University of Lancaster: their approach to teaching has been research-led with a strong practical emphasis on skills acquisition. Gillian Caffelle described the joint projects Minitab has started with the RSSCSE and how these, and other projects, could be developed over the next four years. Matina Rassias demonstrated some novel ways to use quizzes for teaching and assessing statistics at the University of Glasgow. Adrian Bowman showed examples of the use of the R-based system, rpanel, which is designed to make the addition of interactive controls to graphical operations straightforward.   

In the afternoon of the final day over 60 colleagues and visitors were treated to a very entertaining trio of talks chaired by Julian Stander. David Hand illustrated the breadth of insight in statistical understanding that can be achieved through a series of vignettes, ranging from simple graphics to deep philosophical ideas. David Spiegelhalter discussed risk and uncertainty and questioned whether there should be education about risk and uncertainty, what it should aim to do, where it might fit in the curriculum and what it might comprise. His talk was illustrated with the excellent Flash-based interactive graphical software that he and his team at Cambridge have developed. Adrian Bowman put ‘cartoons’ into a new light by showing how animated and interactive graphics can help with the understanding of statistical ideas at all levels. The aim of interaction is to give students a means of exploring concepts until they are comfortable with their roles, while the ability to animate adds an extra dimension which can often spark additional interest – and which can sometimes even raise a welcome smile. Indeed the audience were seen to be smiling and laughing at times during all three talks, such was the level of engagement between the speakers and the audience – to their obvious enjoyment.   

Finally, to round off the week, Neville Davies reviewed the present status of the Centre, paying tribute to the originators of the idea of promoting statistical education in the UK. These were Vic Barnett, Peter Holmes and Warren Gilchrist, the latter being present on the Thursday and Friday. Neville outlined the Centre’s strategy for the next five years. This involved expanding its AtSchool projects through gaining extra funding and broadening its scope to include a range of sports and other curriculum activities. The Centre's new relationship with the Welsh awarding body, WJEC, promised to help influence professional development for schoolteachers, not just in Wales, but across the whole of the UK. The new RSS-accredited Certificate in Teaching Statistics up to Pre-University Level would be launched in 2010 and it had already received its first applicants. For higher education he spoke warmly about continued work with the Higher Education Academy Maths, Stats and OR Network. This was a relationship that had lasted ten years and had been particularly fruitful. Training in the workplace, through expanding train-the-trainers courses in Africa and beyond, accreditation of provision of statistics in overseas universities and engaging with the needs of employers in the UK were set to be key activities over the next five years. He completed the presentation by formally thanking all colleagues, friends and relatives that had travelled to Plymouth to contribute to and take part in the week’s activities.   

 All four of the Friday presentations can be viewed online at the Centre’s website. 

The attentive audience on Friday 20 November           

Neville Davies introducing the RSSCSE re-launch with 

a picture of Vic Barnett, Peter Holmes and 

Warren Gilchrist in the background.

The RSS president, all staff at the RSS in London, the director of the RSSCSE and its external co-funders (RSS, Office for National Statistics, Minitab Ltd and WJEC) wish to acknowledge the enormous effort of senior colleagues at the University of Plymouth for the key part they have played in securing the move and making the transition from Nottingham so smooth. In particular, thanks are due to: Wendy Purcell (vice chancellor), Michael Totterdell (former dean of the Faculty of Education and pro vice chancellor), David Burghes (professor of mathematical education), Julian Stander, Ted Graham, Paul Hewson, John Eales, Rana Moyeed and all staff in the Faculty of Education and School of Computing and Mathematics that have been so welcoming to the RSSCSE since the move on 1 August 2009. Thanks are also due to the Society's General Applications Section and the South West RSS local group who jointly organised the re-launch afternoon on Friday 20 November.