“We use data every day—to choose medications or health practices, to decide on a place to live, or to make judgments about education policy and practice. The newspapers and TV news are full of data about nutrition, side effects of popular drugs, and polls for current elections. Surely there is valuable information here, but how do you judge the reliability of what you read, see, or hear? This is no trivial skill—and we are not preparing students to make these critical and subtle distinctions.” – Andee Rubin, 2005
RCET’s Thinking With Data is a National Science Foundation funded IMD (Instructional Materials for Students) project. Four 2-week, integrated replacement modules for cross-disciplinary implementation in 7th grade social studies, mathematics, science, and English Language arts classes are being designed and tested to develop students’ deep understanding of data literacy across the curriculum. Building on findings from a TWD pilot project (REC-0337384), the modules similarly address issues of data representation, common measure, and proportional reasoning using real data in discipline specific problem-solving contexts aligned with relevant subject area standards. The context for the Thinking with Data (TWD) materials is a compelling one: world water issues. Specifically, materials will be designed around students’ investigations of fair distribution of water in the Tigris/Euphrates basin, as well as selected watersheds in the United States..
The TWD materials produced make use of appropriate technology tools and include detailed lessons and activities, relevant data sets, embedded formative and summative assessments, and extensive teacher professional development materials. All of these materials can be found on the Thinking With Data website.
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This project is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ESI-0628122. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. |