Improving Skills to Teach Statistics in Secondary School through Activity-Based Workshops

FERNANDEZ, M SOLEDAD; FILLOY, JULIETA; ADRIANA PEREZ; CUETO GERARDO; LOIS JIMENA; CARLOS POMILIO; GONZALEZ-ARZAC ADELIA

Statistics Education Research Journal

International Association for Statistical Education (IASE) and the International Statistical Institute (ISI)

Año: 2020

1570-1824

Though statistics is covered in secondary-school curricula, it is usually limited to few classes and it is mainly taught in a procedural approach. There seems to be a gap between the education of teachers and the demands on their later teaching practice. Learning statistics from a mathematical perspective does not qualify to teach the subject properly. We have developed a series of workshops to fill this gap in didactical education. These workshops establish a pedagogical intervention focused on activity-based learning and serve two purposes: first, to improve competencies to teach statistics at secondary level and be able to address students? learning problems; second, to positively influence attitudes towards statistics. The workshops were aimed at mathematics pre-service teachers. The two workshops on ?Descriptive Statistics? and ?Probability? focused on real-data analysis from media, games, and simulations. The workshops were held several times and attracted more than 500 participants; they were positively evaluated in terms of content, relevance and applicability. Initiatives such as our workshops help filling a gap in teacher training.