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Announcements for SRTL6SRTL6 First AnnouncementApril 1, 2008 Dear Colleagues, The International Collaboration for Research on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking, and Literacy (ICRSRTL) would like to announce the sixth in a series of Research Forums to be held in BACKGROUND Statistics education research is emerging as important area of inquiry with multiple implications in school and tertiary curriculum design, instructional activities, technological tools that aid teaching and learning statistics, and teachers’ professional development. Over the past decade there has been an increasingly strong call for statistics education to focus more on statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking. One of the main arguments presented is that traditional approaches to teaching statistics focus mainly on skills, procedures, and computations, which do not lead students to reason or think statistically. This series of International Research Forums focus on current research studies that examine the nature and development of statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking. The SRTL Research Forums The First International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking, and Literacy (SRTL-1) was held in Theme of SRTL-6: The sixth Forum's focus will build on the work presented and discussed at SRTL-5[1] on informal ideas of statistical inference. Recent research suggests an important role for developing ideas of informal types of statistical inference even at early educational levels. Researchers have developed instructional activities that encourage students to infer beyond samples of data and use technological tools to support these informal inferences. The findings of these studies reveal that the context of the data and the use of evidence may be important factors to study further. The role of context is of particular interest because in drawing (informal) inferences from data, students must learn to walk two fine lines. First, they must maintain a view of data as “numbers with a context” ( Based on SRTL-5, we characterize Informal Inferential Reasoning (IIR) as the cognitive activities involved in drawing conclusions with some degree of uncertainty that go beyond the data and having empirical evidence for them. Three principles appear to be essential to informal inference (Makar & Rubin, 2007): (1) generalizations (including predictions, parameter estimates, and conclusions) that go beyond describing the given data; (2) the use of data as evidence for those generalizations; and (3) conclusions that express a degree of uncertainty, whether or not quantified, accounting for the variability or uncertainty that is unavoidable when generalizing beyond the immediate data to a population or a process. We encourage research papers that address questions such as the following: § What is the role of different types of context in arguments students make for even the simplest forms of statistical inference? § How do different contexts help or hinder the development of students’ reasoning about IIR? § How do students rely on and use evidence in making arguments as part of IIR? § What are useful tasks or sequences of instructional activities to use to reveal the use of context and evidence in informal inferential reasoning, and to help learners develop a conceptual understanding of the role of context and evidence in IIR? § How does students’ reasoning about the roles of context and evidence develop while informally drawing conclusions from data? § What roles do technological tools have in scaffolding the understanding of context and evidence in learning to reason about statistical inference? Philosophical or psychological contributions on the theme of IIR are also welcomed. Conference attendance is by invitation only; inquiries may be addressed to the local organizers. First announcement for SRTL6 Download the First announcement for SRTL6Second AnnouncementSECOND ANNOUNCEMENTMarch 1, 2009 Dear Colleague, It is a pleasure to welcome you as a participant in the Sixth International Research Forum on Statistical Reasoning, Thinking and Literacy (SRTL-6) to be held in Brisbane Australia from Friday, July 10 to Thursday, July 16, 2009 at St Leo’s College on The University of Queensland St Lucia campus. The Forum is sponsored by The University of Queensland’s Faculty of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, The American Statistical Association (ASA) Section on Statistical Education, Springer Publishers, and the Department of Mathematics and School of Education at The University of Queensland. Researchers in Statistics Education from around the world have been invited to share their work, discuss important issues, and initiate collaborative projects. With emphasis on The Role of Context and Evidence in Informal Inferential Reasoning, an interesting range of diverse research presentations, posters and discussions have been planned and we all look forward to a stimulating and enriching gathering. One outcome of the Forum will be publication of online proceedings for participants. We are also exploring possibilities for a journal special issue in Mathematical Thinking and Learning and/or a monograph based on the work presented at SRTL-6. The structure of the scientific program will be a mixture of formal and informal sessions, small group and whole group discussions, and the opportunity for extensive analysis of video-taped research data. There will also be a poster session for exhibiting current research of participants on topics related to the theme. All participants are asked to submit their completed registration and payment by May 1, 2009 to avoid a late fee. Paper presenters are requested to submit their summary paper (details below) by May 1, 2009. Poster presenters are also requested to submit a title and one-page abstract by May 1, 2009. In preparation for SRTL-6, it is very important that all participants read the entire set of summary papers submitted by presentation authors before arriving in order to allow the focus during presentations to be on discussing data, analysis, and implications. These summary papers will be made available six weeks before the Forum. We look forward to welcoming you to a stimulating meeting and a memorable visit to The University of Queensland. Sincerely yours,
SPONSORS A sincere thank you to the sponsors who have helped to make the Research Forum possible: · The University of Queensland’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Australia · The American Statistical Association (ASA) Section on Statistical Education · Springer Publishers · School of Mathematics and Physics and School of Education, The University of Queensland, Australia SRTL-6 SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM COMMITTEE By reviewing the proposed papers, the members of the Scientific Program Committee have helped to shape the scientific program of SRTL-6. Dani Ben-Zvi (Co-Chair) The University of Haifa, Israel Joan Garfield (Co-Chair) University of Minnesota, USA Janet Ainley University of Leicester, UK Arthur Bakker Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Beth Chance California Polytechnic State University, USA Katie Makar The University of Queensland, Australia Andee Rubin TERC, USA LOCAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Second announcement for SRTL6 Download the complete Second announcement for SRTL6 | ||||||||||||
