The lunch starts at 12:00, and the talk will start around 12:20.
NB: Wednesday BigInsight Lunches are open to staff and students from any of the BigInsight partners, including UiO, but not to others.
Speaker: Mette Langaas, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Computing Centre Big Insights SFI
Location: Spiseriet at Norsk Regnesentral.
Title: The future of teaching statistics
Abstract: Today, statistics is everywhere in society. It appears in our media, in jobs, and in advertising. Especially, it affects statisticians and non-statisticians alike. At university, we have the same story. Students in a variety of different fields are required to take statistics. Some of these students may go on to become statisticians, while others will only meet statistics in the news or at work.
Common jobs are also being “statistically charged”. More than ever, skills in scientific computation and data analysis are highly sought after. Within these jobs, statisticians and the like are required to “think on their feet, solve problems and analyze data” often with state-of-the-art statistical methods. The requirement of being “lifelong learners” is increasing.
But educating and learning is also changing. For example, “the death of the lecture” has been proclaimed for many years now. This has resulted in campuses and lecture halls changing to “active learning areas”. At the same time, top ranked universities abroad advertise massive online open (and paid for) courses available to “everyone”.
Due to the digitalization of society, need for continued education, and diverse student population, (statistics) teaching at the university level is facing new challenges. In this presentation I will elaborate on some of these challenges and talk about my experience with developing (open) learning materials and implementing and running active learning sessions at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Hopefully, the talk will inspire active discussions in the audience. Participation and feedback from (lifelong learners) outside the university is highly welcome!
Before you come to the talk: please spend a few minutes (5-10) to fill in this questionnaire (44 a/b-questions) - and take a screen shot of your scores (the four scores will only be shown to you on your screen), this will (hopefully) give you some insight into your own learning style and make observations in my presentation more easy to relate to. https://www.webtools.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/
