#52 Bring Your Statistics Class to Life with Community-Engaged Learning

Oct 26, 2021

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Is it possible to help our math students become better citizens while teaching them statistics?

Tune in to today’s episode with Jana Asher & Jeffrey Musyt, assistant professors at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Slippery Rock University. Through the Office of Community Engaged Learning at Slippery Rock University, Jana & Jeffrey have been using ‘community engagement’ projects to level up how they teach Statistics and will share how you can do the same in your classroom!

The key topics discussed in this episode include:

How to use statistics as a tool for becoming a good citizen [6.06]
How to foster relationships with community partners in your school [12.32]
Know what to do (and not to do) when creating a community-engaged project [18.00]
Jana shares the importance of having a backup dataset plan [19.45]
Even as a teacher, it is OKAY to make mistakes [22.44]

Episode #52 is sponsored by Allison's upcoming book, Crush Hypothesis Testing: Get the first 2 Chapters of this new Statistics book for free at https://www.allisonlovesmath.com/free

Quotable

Let’s reframe statistics. It isn't just a math course. It's also a course that is going to help you learn about how to be a good citizen. - Jana Asher
Data collection is important because my students learn that data are dirty. Data isn't perfect. People don't answer questions the way you expect. They learn a little bit more about all that uncertainty around data. They don't see when their data sets are perfectly packaged for them. - Jana Asher
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. As long as you're upfront and honest with the students, I think they appreciate the effort. They appreciate that it isn't just them listening and having to just regurgitate information back. They're going to get to do something real and it’s really empowering for them. - Jeffrey Musyt

Connect with Jana & Jeffrey

To get Jana & Jeffrey’s Presentation on Community-Engaged Learning, email them at [email protected] or [email protected]
Jana’s Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janaasher/
Office for Community Engaged Learning: https://www.sru.edu/offices/community-engaged-learning
Campus Compact: https://compact.org

Book Resources

Crush Hypothesis Testing: The five-step method to make hypothesis testing easier and understandable. I wrote this book with Math Professor Jennifer Flenner and you can read the first two chapters of Crush Hypothesis Testing for free at www.allisonlovesmath.com/free.
Raise your Math Grade: Get this FREE short book, which is a toughen-up math manifesto mixed with you-can-do-it enthusiasm. It is an open educational resource, meaning you can share it freely with friends, students, and colleagues.
Crush Math Now: Order this best-selling Amazon book! It is a study guide packed with all the advice Allison has given students over the years on math mindset, study skills, and test-taking strategies.
Love Math Journal: Get this growth mindset journal to help 4th-8th grade students to succeed in and love math. This journal is co-authored by Allison and Nicole Thomson, who had been on Episode# 44 Using Gratitude to Help Students Overcome Math Anxiety.

Connect with Allison

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Allison-Dillard/e/B07PV43V59
Website: https://www.allisonlovesmath.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/allisonlovesmath
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllisonLovesMath
Twitter : https://twitter.com/AllisonLuvsMath

Transcript

Allison Dillard: Welcome to the Allison Dillard Loves Math Podcast! I'm your host, Allison Dillard. I am a math professor and author. This is my podcast where I interview leaders and legends, trailblazers and disruptors, in math and education about how to best set our kids and our students up for success in Math, STEM, school, and life.

Today's interview is brought to you by my new statistics book, CRUSH HYPOTHESIS TESTING: The Five-Step Method to Make Hypothesis Testing Easier and Understandable. I wrote this book with math professor Jennifer Flenner. You can read the first two chapters of Crush Hypothesis Testing for free at www.Allisonlovesmath.com/free. Enjoy the interview!

Today, I'm very excited to introduce two amazing statistics professors. I was fortunate enough to get to hear them at a statistics conference this summer and I thought that their idea, their presentation, on what we call "community-engaged learning" was one of the most interesting things I think that I've ever heard to bring into the statistics classroom. I'm super excited to introduce you, Jana Asher, and Jeffrey Musyt. Welcome to the podcast!

Jeffrey Musyt: Thanks!

Jana Asher: We are really happy to be here.

Allison Dillard: Why don't you introduce yourselves? First, tell us a little bit about your background. How did you come to this amazing presentation which I heard earlier this summer? Jana, do you want to start?

Jana Asher: My name is Jana Asher. I'm currently an assistant professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Slippery Rock University. Before I came here, I actually spent two years teaching at Macquarie college and Montgomery County, Maryland, and so my journey to "Community-Engaged Learning" started there. I noticed my students were pretty bored until the very end of the course. I hate to say it, but, you know, I was teaching students in an elementary statistics class. Your typical student isn't there because they want to become a statistics major; they're there because it's a requirement for some other major. I had already replaced the final exam with a final project and the final project was based on real data.

That very first semester, I had a group of nurses, for example, that researched nursing salaries, using a government data set. They were amazed and shocked to find out that men outearn women, no matter what. You can equalize the education level, you can equalize the actual rank at the organization they're working at, and they got it! They finally understood at the end of the semester why they had to take these 16 weeks of statistics. I wanted to see them get more excited and understand better earlier on why an elementary statistics class is really essential, not just for their field but for life, and over time it came to the idea of having service-learning.

The idea behind service-learning is that you are engaged in a data collection and analysis project for an organization that needs the information. I thought, at the end of two years with Montgomery College, I knew it all, and I was great and I could do service learning. Then, I got to Slippery Rock University and met real professionals and community-engaged learning and I figured out I had a whole lot more to learn. That was about two years ago, and since then I've gotten really involved in the Office for Community-Engaged Learning here. I am now a service-learning associate. I help other faculty members learn about service learning and community engagement.

Allison Dillard: That's so awesome! Jeffrey Musyt, introduce yourself as well!

Jeffrey Musyt: I'm Jeffrey Musyt. I'm also an Assistant Professor here at Slippery Rock University. Full disclosure - I'm not actually a statistician. I'm trained as a pure mathematician, so my road is a little bit different.

Jana Asher: You did teach statistics!

Jeffrey Musyt: I have taught statistics, so I am not that far from it. When I was in grad school at the University of Oregon, I spent a lot of time doing community outreach. We did a science day for girls at the local science museum. We did an after-school program at some of the underfunded school districts in the area, so I've always been interested in the educational side of mathematics and getting more engagement in the classroom. Then, I always had this interest in how we can improve math education. When I got to Slippery Rock, Jana and I were hired at the same time. We had a lot of great discussions about involving more civics in the major and getting more of a well-rounded student out of a math program to both the statistics and math world. I also got involved in our Center for Community-Engaged Learning. I took their semester-long training course to get certified as well. Then, I've been trying to implement some of these practices in our 'Math for Teacher' courses that we've been redesigning over the past summer.

Allison Dillard: Awesome! That sounds so great! One of the reasons why I want to talk to you guys about this today is because I know, as a stats professor, our biggest challenge is, what you said, Jana. Students take this class because it's a requirement. They don't necessarily want to be there. There's a ton of material that we've got to cover and it's very easy for [students] to just feel like, “Go, go, go, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I'm just getting through it, I'm just getting through it.” As for stats professors, we're always looking for ways to make it more interesting, more engaging, and just a more worthwhile experience for our students. So, I think, what you have is a really interesting tool for us, as teachers, to have in our toolbox, and to try out and experiment with. I would assume that it's something that you try out one semester, and then it evolves over time. I guess for teachers listening, this isn't like something that you have to do, but something to think about. We're recording this over summer before school starts, but, by the time it's actually out, it'll probably be in the semester, so it could be a good time to just think about it as something to possibly consider for next semester.

I want to just ask you guys, from the standpoint of a teacher who's never done any projects in their stats class before, How would one get started thinking about [community-engaged learning projects] and planning for it? And how would you set up the most simple basic version of this? Could you walk us through that?

Jana Asher: Sure, and I actually would argue that the most simple basic version may not even have a project at all. So, what I learned when I got the Slippery Rock is that what makes it 'Community-Engaged' versus ‘just being a project and we'll go help some people’ is learning these other skills around becoming a good citizen.

If you think about the role of statistics in society, that's a starting point. What is the public purpose of the field of statistics? Well, statistics form the backbone of how our government determines who gets what funding. The census every 10 years is used to re-district. If you look at the use of statistics in science, it's used to develop experimental designs and so you can even start a journey with your students relatively early in the class. I teach about different study designs towards the beginning of the class, but I actually start by telling a story of elementary statistics, at least in the United States, all the way back in 1790, when the founding fathers wrote into the Constitution that we need to have a census. We need to enumerate people. They did that before they got to 'Oh yeah, we need a president. A Supreme Court would be a good idea too!' It was there at the beginning and it's a history lesson. Why did the founding fathers say 'Hey! We gotta count people up. We've got to create statistics.'? Because they understood that for democracy to function, people need representation. In a place with 380 million people, representation can't be everybody who gets to write a letter saying what they want that's impossible to summarize. Statistics gives us a tool to allow that representation to happen. I would argue, the first thing to do is to really start rethinking, “Am I teaching statistics? Or am I teaching a tool for democracy?” And that sounds strange when you first hear about it, but it makes it a whole lot more interesting to the students.

This is a vibrant, incredible field that is the basis of everything, the basis of business, how the business operates these days, the basis of how science operates, the basis of how government operates, and the basics of civil society. I think, just reframing statistics as - this isn't a math course, it's a course (that is) going to help you learn about how to be a good citizen is a starting place. Then I make sure that the topics we follow up with are what makes a good data description, the good box plot or a good data display versus a bad one.

I have a fun lesson, where we look at bad data displays and we talk about what's wrong with them and how awful they are. Actually, the students really love it, but make sure that what I'm teaching you are the skills for a good citizen. Can you read a newspaper and understand the statistics that are presented in a newspaper at the end of this? This is essential. In the feedback I've gotten because - reflection is part of the whole world of community engagement - the students get that. Even the students who hate the class still like statistics and at least now think, “I know why I need that. Now, I understand why I needed to take this course, and why it's important.” I get from that all the way up to students saying, 'You've changed my life. Now, when I go out and I look at the world, I think about the statistics, I think about the representation'. It is just that reframing I think is really, really powerful. That's what the community-engaged piece brings in.

Allison Dillard: I really loved what you said about teaching skills to be a good citizen. In my previous stats class, on the first day, I do go all in about why stats are important and why stats are worthwhile. But, I think, that particular piece about linking it to being a good citizen is really a step beyond that, because, I mean we're talking about who we are as people and what good we're doing, what value we're bringing to society and in our lives. That is not something I hear about on the first day of the stats class.

Jana Asher: You'd do if you were in my class,

Allison Dillard: I love it. I love it so much.

Jeffrey Musyt: I was gonna say, I think, that's another easy access point where other people can start to engage in these ideas to touch on a moment that Jena had said, which was reflection. Often, we don't ask students to think about what they're learning, while they're learning it outside of “Can you perform this task?” or whatever. One of the things our Center for Community Engagement Learning really thinks about is thought-provoking questions. So getting to students after you've done this introduction or you've talked about what makes a good citizen or bad citizen or how statistics is important for a functioning democracy, you can start to turn this lens back on them and have them reflect on this idea. Some questions like- 'What does it mean to treat someone like a statistic? Have you ever felt like you were just a statistic?' Connect that human component back to the thing you're learning and try to bridge that gap of here is this knowledge and it really is a tool that's related to my life and (this is) how it affects me and those around me. That helps to bridge the gap with how we're reallocating funding, or is it appropriate to give more money to schools, etc, etc.

Allison Dillard: Right! Again, I think, part of what I find so fascinating about this is that it overlaps with some of the stuff that I do in class like the reflection, for example, I ask students to reflect a lot. (I ask students to reflect) on how they're studying statistics like how they're learning it. But, you're reflecting in a different way. It goes back to being a good citizen. It's a different angle on the reflection that's beyond growth mindset and social-emotional learning skills. It's a very different take on it. I love it. I think I'm saying the word 'love' too much in this episode because I really like everything you guys are saying.

Jana Asher: I wanted to get back to the project because there are aspects of how community-engaged learning works and how you interact with the community is important. I think Jeff would like to talk about that important piece, understanding the reciprocity that we're going to work in a respectful way with community partners. We're not just going out and trying to make the world better without actually engaging with the people that maybe could work with us, maybe they need our assistance, but they're going to provide us with the project that's going to make our class more interesting. So it's really a reciprocal arrangement.

Allison Dillard: I am curious about this as a teacher who's looking at this, doing this for the first time, I feel like that my biggest block or concern is jumping into it (and getting to know) how is it that I set something up with some organization in the community. How do I actually set up it from the get-go? Yes, I'm super curious about this.

Jeffrey Musyt: Yeah! So the first thing (is) to tie back if you're just starting this is a partnership. Partnerships usually don't magically happen. It is a lot of groundwork. It's maybe something you try to build up throughout the summer. Often the people that have talked about building these relationships, it is a mutual back and forth.

Jana Asher: I will say at the high school level, the situation is a little different. At the college level, it's a little easier for us to get our students into the community. There (they are ) legal adults. We don't need to get permission slips. It is a little bit easier. But, one low-hanging fruit place to start with partnerships is within your own school. There may be a data need that your school would really like to find out more about. It could be something as simple as through the student activities and clubs we cover the interest of the students in the school and maybe the idea is that if you're in a high school, you're going to do a survey of students and find out which clubs are involved with and what they think is missing. I would say, you don't have to build the world's most perfect project to start. You start with kind of the low-hanging fruit and that's how I started. I started by having students collect information for different departments at Montgomery college. We had one group that worked on security. The security group was interested if there were crimes that were not being reported, and so we learned a little bit about sensitive questions and confidentiality, and then we did a survey related to that. So that's one place to start. Don't feel like you have to go all the way the first time.

Allison Dillard: I think that makes a lot of sense because you're out of school whether it's a high school or community college or college that's a huge organization itself and there's definitely going to be some needs there so it's a great starting place to ask around and find out. I love that!

Jana Asher: I think that the idea of reciprocity is important, even at the school level, and so one of the things that teachers may not think about, for instance, is that, at the College level, you share your syllabus with your Community partner. My Community Partner this semester is actually an office on campus and it's an incredibly exciting project we're going to be collecting information about our students and LGBTQ is status. The reason why this is important is that we know that there's a differential for marginalized populations in retention in college and in completing college. But, we don't have the data to see if that's a problem for us at our university and so I'm actually working with our own office of resource planning and assessment. They're going to be providing a lot of support to my class as we go out and we collect this data. But I already shared my syllabus with my Community partner to see what their input was and in a true reciprocal partnership, hopefully, you're getting help and assistance from the partner as much as they're getting help and assistance from you. That's one important key that strengthens the experience.

Jeffrey Musyt: A lot of people will interact and say. "Hey! I'm looking for a community partner. Here are some of my ideas.'. But, the idea of this reciprocity isn't - 'Hey! I want to do this project. Will you give me your data? It's like,"Hey! I'm interested in collecting data for you. What do you need help on? What data would you like to collect?" Letting the Community a little bit drive some of the ideas or some of the questions you're trying to answer. Also, some of the things we talk about a little bit is where we're coming from - a school or (college). Especially at the College level, especially for local communities, there might be a sense of power or privilege on our end. "Oh! if we don't accept the university's help then they aren't going to help us anymore. The University has funds and we'd like access to that.". There is some dynamic there, so you want to make sure you're being respectful to the community partner and also making it a true partnership. You want to move beyond just cooperation and helping each other to build something that's lasting and sustaining and really answering the community's needs.

Allison Dillard: Sounds great! Okay, so we found someone in the community that we've partnered with. How do you set that up? How does that play out in the class? How do you introduce it to your class?

Jana Asher: Well, I don't like a community partner to come to class.

Allison Dillard: That's incredibly powerful.

Jana Asher: One semester, I actually had a student. I'm not sure how she missed it. About week three or four. She's like, "You mean we're doing a real project and we're collecting real data that somebody really needs.". I'm like, "Yeah". She kind of stopped for a second and said, "That is so cool". She was selling this mindset that we just practice in class and that we don't do real work in class. It just took a while for her to really absorb that idea, but one thing that helps get it across really quickly is to have that Community Partner come in and say, "Hi, I'm the director of the local library." or "Hello! I'm the resource management director at Slippery Rock University." That's usually how I personally like to introduce (the partner). Then the students can ask the questions directly about what that partner is about and what they need.

Allison Dillard: So perfect!

Jeffrey Musyt: I mean, it's doubly nice, because if you're working with the Community partner, if it's a library or maybe a local food bank or something like that; your Community Partner is really the expert in that field as much as we engage with them. They can answer questions better, explain things better. There's also some good research to show that just talking about diversity isn't enough to really change students' minds or to really get them engaged in that. They really need to have meaningful interactions with them. So, starting by bringing in people who are in the Community or your Community partner starts to build those bridges. It's more of just a list of statistics or talking about it in class where everyone's from the same background, possibly. So, bringing in that diverse perspective of someone who is academic is really helpful to students to really set home that no, this is a real project. These are real individuals who were hopefully improving with our research and project.

Jana Asher: Another piece, I just want to emphasize is don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good in this. Maybe you find a Community partner that already has data, and your students aren't doing the actual data collection that's fine. That still can be a powerful learning experience, and in fact, I just completed a research paper comparing outcomes between a semester, where we had to use pre-existing data, at first as a semester, where we collected data to see if there was a difference in sense of civic responsibility or enthusiasm about statistics and we found no difference, and so I like the data collection because my students learn that data are dirty. Data isn't perfect. People don't answer questions the way you expect. They learn a little bit more about all that uncertainty around data. They don't see when their data sets are perfectly packaged for them. I think that's a really powerful learning experience, but, for the overall goals of getting enthusiastic about statistics and understanding the connection to civic responsibility. It's not necessarily required to do that.

Allison Dillard: That's a really good point too. Another question I have for you guys as a teacher who is thinking about doing something like this - 'Oh my God! Yes! I totally want to do it.' But, then there are a few worries that come up along the way in terms of setting it up, so I think one of the things that came up for me, which you guys did address in the conference is - What happens if it goes wrong? You're worried about getting afraid of really fudging things right?You put it in the syllabus, it is part of the grid. What happens if things fall apart? What do I do then?

Jana Asher: Things can go horribly horribly wrong. That's going to be the case anytime you try to be innovative and try something new. There's a really good chance it's just not going to work perfectly. One of the suggestions I made in the workshop was to have a backup data set and that's what happened with me. I had a project which was going to be great. There were going to be students that participated in the youth homelessness survey. They were going to get to interact with foster youth and youth that had had some pretty different experiences as college students. And maybe from middle-class backgrounds where they hadn't had to go through these hardships that the homeless students had. Well, we had it set up, called it happens so we had to shut it down and do something else instead of it in that semester. I had a different class that was working on a sustainability project related to sustainable development goals on campus. So everybody ended up on that project. The next semester we went back, we tried it again. We tried a snowball sample, where we were going to find other homeless youth through the homeless youth we had contacts with. That fizzle didn't work either. Luckily, I had a Covid Dataset that had just been released from the University of Chicago on experiences during covid. We were able to do something for an administration that was related to mental health outcomes in which coping mechanisms seemed to work best for students and try to create policy around that and encourage those coping mechanisms for the next semester. Things do go wrong, but that was part of the learning experience for the students. I had some students that did interviews with the homeless, youth and I had to say to them, it fizzled out and so we're going to do this instead. That's actually a good lesson for students because a lot of them have come from an educational background where they're given an assignment. They do the assignment the way they're supposed to and they get a good grade and they haven't had that challenge of a real-life experience, where - "Okay! Here's my project and it failed.". Being able to recover from that and go on and still have a meaningful experience. I want my students to not be afraid to fail, I want my students to be willing to take risks because that's where true learning happens. So I use it as a learning-teaching moment.

Allison Dillard: Yes, I love that! One of the things that I love about math is that it can be a tool to help students develop a growth mindset. We have to give them projects and things where they can fail, where things go wrong, where it gets messy. This is a really, really good example of being able to do that and well. Yes, as a teacher, it might make your class a little bit more chaotic, a little less predictable,(but) it's actually a much stronger learning experience for the students in the class. Just as we're trying to teach them that, it's okay to make mistakes, we have to remember that, too, as teachers. I love what you said Jana - If you're going to do anything innovative in your classroom, you have to be okay with making mistakes! Otherwise, you're just doing the same thing forever and nothing's ever-changing and nothing's ever-improving. I love that.

Jana Asher: I think sometimes teachers are afraid that they'll lose face a little bit if they make a mistake in the classroom or their students will (not) consider them experts anymore. I haven't found that. I found that if I am honest with students and say- "We're going to try this new thing, I haven't done it before. I'm really hopeful. We'll see how it goes". As long as I'm honest with them, they respect that. I think maybe one out of 50 students are like you weren't the expert I wanted. But the vast majority of students appreciate that modeling of -this is how you try new things, this is how you experiment and maybe you fail at first, and eventually you succeed because you keep trying again. At least that's been my experience.

Jeffrey Musyt: Yeah! I was gonna say, I think, as long as you're upfront and give students the full explanation of - We're going to try to do this thing. Hopefully, it will work. Here are the contingencies I built for it so that it will work. But, with all things in life, especially with trying to collect data, things might go terribly horribly wrong. So I think being upfront with students and also it then develops into more of a community within the classroom. It isn't that teacher-student distinction that is important for some communication and knowledge, but, it is we're doing this project together, I'm going to help facilitate this for you I'm here to help you answer your questions and I'm going to support you, but we're actually doing this, all together. It isn't like- I wrote the test now to demonstrate for me, what I want from you. So it does help to build that Community which then really helps to mitigate some of these stress or these new ideas that students are coming across.

Jana Asher: The self-esteem hit for students is incredible too.That semester, where we had to switch to working on a sustainability project all the students were co-authors on a report that went up. We're part of the Pennsylvania state system. It went all the way to the Chancellor and (I have) been able to say as a freshman, I helped write a report that affected the entire state system of Pennsylvania. That's some heavy stuff. That's pretty cool. I want students to have that experience of - You are already a productive member of society. You have something to contribute. We're just going to help you hone those skills and help you learn how to do that, even better, and that's what students need to hear. They need to hear that they are valuable.

Allison Dillard: Fantastic! Awesome! I love that. Let's see before we go, are there any final thoughts, final pieces of advice, anything that maybe I forgot to ask about.

Jana Asher: I think we've expressed this but don't be afraid to try, don't be afraid to make mistakes.

As long as you're upfront and honest with the students, I think they appreciate the effort. They appreciate that it isn't just them listening and having to just regurgitate information back. They're going to get to do something real that is really empowering for them.

Allison Dillard: Awesome! Perfect! Where could teachers find out more about Community-engaged learning?

Jeffrey Musyt: We usually recommend campus compact.org. They're the big front liners on Community-Engaged learning. (They have a) lot of good resources. I think, in various parts of the States, there are even local communities so you can definitely get on a mailing list or even put your name in to join a local community if you're around one of the places that have one. But there's a lot of good resources on how to get your feet wet. And (I will) echo Jana's idea- You don't have to have the world's greatest project that's all-inclusive and perfect the first time. Even to make a circle back to the beginning, even if you just take a statistics class where you talk about the public purpose of statistics, or you build in one or two reflection questions like you said that you do. Little things like that are good stepping stones to helping you get to the process of Community-Engaged Learning. It benefits students, even if it's just a moment to say-"Oh! I'm a part of this bigger society. I have a voice. It's important that I understand these ideas so that at least I'm well informed, even if I don't go out to collect research or resources or data." Even I would echo the first steps. First, do as much as you can, and don't be afraid to fail. Students are a bit more resilient than we give them credit for sometimes. Campus Compact is a great place to get those resources.

Allison Dillard: Yeah and I think that conversation about being a good citizen and relating it to statistics can happen at any point in this semester. You can prepare that in the same way that you would just a regular class. For me, when I first started talking even just about the growth mindset, anything that wasn't math, it was very nerve-racking because it was different than talking about something different than a math concept. But, you can prepare that in the exact same way, you would (prepare) a math lesson (like)- What are the points that I want to make? What may be some of the discussion questions that I want to have? Then you try it out and make some notes and reflect on your own afterward. That way, the following time you can improve upon that particular lesson.

Jana Asher: Even something as simple as using examples where statistics are being used for a public purpose makes a difference. If you're not comfortable having a whole lesson at first. Just think about inserting some examples (like) how the census is used, or how experimental data led to a breakthrough in something. There are examples out there. You (could even) build a little bit into every lesson. It doesn't have to be perfect to start. Just getting them thinking about this idea is powerful (as well).

Jeffrey Musyt: Even just taking a snippet of a newspaper article. Be like there's this idea about an expected value or something and then it shows up in a newspaper. That can be your spring into, there's this claim about something being crazy or unexpected, is it really that unexpected? Even just a little bit of like -"Hey! This is taking place in a bigger world. Let's give some motivation to why it's important to understand this concept."

Allison Dillard: Awesome! Thank you guys so much for coming here today to share your work. It's really powerful and can help so many teachers to make statistics more engaging and more meaningful to create powerful experiences for students. I really appreciate the work that you're doing, I hope that you continue to share it with as many teachers as possible, and I hope to see more and more classrooms in the coming years.

Jana Asher: So do we!

Jeffrey Musyt: Absolutely!

Jana Asher: We've drunk the Kool-aid and we're on board.

Allison Dillard: Fantastic! Thank you for listening to the Allison Loves Math podcast. To be sure you are not missing any new episodes hit subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or your other favorite podcast platforms. Remember, you can check out the first two chapters of my book CRUSH HYPOTHESIS TESTING at www.Allisonlovesmath.com/free.Thank you for listening today! I will see you in the next interview.

Book Resources

Crush Hypothesis Testing: The five-step method to make hypothesis testing easier and understandable. I wrote this book with Math Professor Jennifer Flenner and you can read the first two chapters of Crush Hypothesis Testing for free at www.allisonlovesmath.com/free.
Raise your Math Grade: Get this FREE short book, which is a toughen-up math manifesto mixed with you-can-do-it enthusiasm. It is an open educational resource, meaning you can share it freely with friends, students, and colleagues.
Crush Math Now: Order this best-selling Amazon book! It is a study guide packed with all the advice Allison has given students over the years on math mindset, study skills, and test-taking strategies.
Love Math Journal: Get this growth mindset journal to help 4th-8th grade students to succeed in and love math. This journal is co-authored by Allison and Nicole Thomson, who had been on Episode# 44 Using Gratitude to Help Students Overcome Math Anxiety.