Teaching Statistics in School Mathematics-challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education: A Joint Icmi/Iase Study, the 18th Icmi Study

Teaching Statistics in School Mathematics-Challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education results from the Joint ICMI/IASE Study Teaching Statistics in School Mathematics: Challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education. Oriented to analyse the teaching of statistics in school and to recommend improvements in the training of mathematics teachers to encourage success in preparing statistically literate students, the volume provides a picture of the current situation in both the teaching of school statistics and the pre-service education of mathematics teachers.

A primary goal of Teaching Statistics in School Mathematics-Challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education is to describe the essential elements of statistics, teacher’s professional knowledge and their learning experiences.  Moreover, a research agenda that invites new research, while building from current knowledge, is developed. Recommendations about strategies and materials, available to train prospective teachers in university and in-service teachers who have not been adequately prepared, are also accessible to the reader.

Dr. Carmen Batanero

Carmen Batanero is Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Granada, Spain, where she coordinates a research group in statistics education and she teaches mathematics education to pre-service mathematics teachers and statistics education in the Masters’ Programme in Mathematics Education.  Before joining this Department in 1988, she worked in the Department of Statistics, where she taught probability and biostatistics courses for 11 years and completed her Ph.D in Statistics. Her main research interest is statistics education, a topic in which she has coordinated several funded projects and has supervised many doctoral dissertations. She is also interested in the theoretical and methodological bases for research on mathematics education and the education of mathematics teachers to teach statistics. Carmen has been actively  involved in the statistics and mathematics education community for many years and was President of the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE), member of the IASE executive committee and  member of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction Executive committee. She was chair of the International Programme Committee for the IASE Round Table Conference in Japan, 2000; the International Conference on Teaching Statistics in Brazil, 2006;  and the Joint ICMI/IASE Study Conference in Mexico, 2008. In addition she has been involved in the scientific committee of many other international conferences in the past 15 years. She was co-editor of Statistics Education Research Journal and is currently associate editor of various mathematics and statistics education journals. She is life member of the IASE.

Gail Burrill

Gail Burrill, a secondary teacher and department chair in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin for over 25 years, is currently a Mathematics Specialist in the Division of Science and Mathematics Education at Michigan StateUniversity.  She was an associate researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she served as President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and as Director of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board. Her honors include the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics and the Wisconsin Distinguished Educator Award.  She was elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She directs the Institute for Advanced Study’s International Seminar as well as the Secondary School Teachers Program component of the Park City Mathematics Institute and serves on numerous boards and committees in an advisory capacity. She is an instructor for Teachers Teaching with Technology and is a senior mathematics advisor to Texas Instruments Education Technology.  Burrill has written and edited many books and articles on teaching and learning statistics. She has spoken nationally and internationally on issues in teaching and learning mathematics, in particular in conjunction with the International Association for Statistical Education (IASE). She has served on numerous Program Committees, organized Roundtables, and was Editor of several volumes for IASE and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics including the Sixty-eighth Yearbook on Thinking and Reasoning with Data and Chance.  Her research interests are statistics education, the use of technology in teaching secondary mathematics, and issues related to what it means to teach mathematics.

Dr Christine Reading

Chris Reading is a Senior Lecturer in ICT Education in the School of Education at the University of New England where she delivers training to pre-service and in-service teachers. She has more than thirty five years experience in education within the secondary school, university and TAFE sectors and received an 2008 Award for Teaching Excellencefrom The Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Her statistics education research focuses mainly on student reasoning, in particular reasoning about the concepts of variation and distribution. Chris actively contributes to the statistics education professional communities. She was Vice President of the International Association of Statistical Education (IASE) for six years and Assistant Editor of the Statistics Education Research Journal (SERJ) for five years. She is currently an Associate Editor of SERJ. Chris has attended the first six Statistical Reasoning, Thinking and Literacy International Research Forums and contributed to the planning of many of these forums, including hosting one forum in Australia. She has also been on the organising committees of a number of international conferences including, the ICMI/IASE Joint Study Conference in Mexico in 2008 and the International Conference on the Teaching of Statistics in Brazil in 2006, and then in Slovenia in 2010.