The SAS Innovate Conference brings together professionals from around the globe to explore the cutting edge of analytics and artificial intelligence. Despite being one of the few students, Ingram made valuable connections, including with an ������Ƶ alum who now contributes to SAS certification resources.

Much of the conference focused on the transformative impact of AI, with sessions highlighting new features of SAS Studio—such as expanded integration with R, Python and SQL. Ingram shared that one key insight was how AI is rapidly becoming a required skill in the workplace. A resounding message was that “AI is not going to replace your job, but someone who can use AI will.” They were particularly inspired by the opportunities to dive into niche topics through informal “brain dates” and to see major tech players like SAS promoting inclusion through events such as a Queer identity networking night.

Ingram emphasized that attending with a group of students would enhance the experience and advises future student participants to plan using the conference app to map out sessions and manage time effectively. They also appreciated the perks, from free student registration to engaging evening events like a comedy show with DJ Jazzy Jeff and Alfonso Ribeiro and a free Universal Studios visit at night.

Reflecting on their experience, Ingram believes SAS Innovate is an accessible and valuable opportunity for students interested in analytics.

“You can take as many SAS certification exams as you want, and they’re free for students,” they said. Their experience not only broadened their career perspective but also demonstrated how students can thrive and find community in professional spaces. The department is excited about the possibility of expanding future student participation.

The consultation is held every two years, to bring together science and mathematics educators in participating countries. This consultation brought together 75 educators from the United States, Carribean, Latin America and Europe.

Heather Barker presented on her work developing a pedagogical framework for Teaching Statistics for Social Justice. It was a great opportunity to learn about research and pedagogy that will prove very useful in teaching future classes.

International conferences often give attendees extra time to explore the host country and get to know other attendees. Travel to this conference was funded by ������Ƶ College, the College of Arts and Science.

This unique four-day event focused on the human-driven aspects of data creation and usage, aiming to promote inclusivity in the teaching and learning of statistics and data science. Attendees shared their passion, expertise and experiences through a mixture of papers and workshops, along with ample opportunities for in-person discussions.

Barker’s paper, titled “Integrating Social Justice into Data Investigation: A Framework for Statistical Analysis of Police-Involved Deaths,” explores the intersection of teaching mathematics for social justice principles and a data investigation process framework. The study utilized a dataset documenting police-involved deaths, demonstrating how statistical techniques can be applied to real-world data. She introduced the Social Justice Data Investigation Process framework, which highlights the interplay between statistical habits of mind, social justice teaching and the data investigation process. Preliminary insights from high school and college students who participated in this data investigation were also shared.

The IASE Roundtable Conference is distinctive in its approach, requiring presenters to share their papers with participants two months before the meeting for review. Presenters then revise their papers based on this feedback and use it to shape their presentations. After the conference, participants provide further feedback on all presentations, leading to one final round of revisions before the papers are published in the conference proceedings by the end of the year.

This participation not only highlights Barker’s dedication and expertise in the field of statistics and data science education but also underscores the university’s commitment to fostering inclusive and impactful research.

Funding for the research was made possible through a mini-grant from the Center for Advancement in Teaching and Learning.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become an increasingly popular way for people to reach their professional development goals. The  a part of the College of Education of N.C. State University, developed and hosted MOOC-Eds , free online professional development courses for educators. This research focused on evaluating discussion board forum posts that were made in two different courses developed to enhance teachers’ understanding of statistics and teaching strategies in middle school through introductory-level college courses. The first course was offered seven times and the second course was offered three times, with 3,815 enrolled in all of these sections. The introductory discussion forum posts were analyzed to determine what factors motivated these individuals to enroll in these courses.

Traditionally these sorts of posts would be read and analyzed using qualitative methods, which can be labor-intensive. This study used topic modeling, a computational text mining technique, to see if topic modeling is a viable alternative to traditional qualitative research methods. Three topic modeling methods, using both unsupervised and supervised learning techniques, were applied to these posts. Findings showed one of the unsupervised techniques worked “best” at assigning themes, though the authors encourage anyone attempting this work be sure that the context of the data (in this case the statistics professional development courses) never be separated from the analysis.

Barker, H., Lee, H., Kellogg, S. & Anderson, R.(2024). The viability of topic modeling to identify participant motivations for enrolling in online professional development. Online Learning, 28(1), 175-195. DOI: 

AMTE is the largest organization that supports teacher mathematics and statistics education in preparing preservice K-12 teachers to teach. ������Ƶ faculty members Heather Barker and Emily Elrod have been members of the organization for many years, and look forward to this conference as a way to reconnect with colleagues and learn about new pedagogy and research for the field of teacher education.

Barker and Elrod presented their current work titled “Data Storytelling in a K-8 Preservice Mathematics Course.” For the last two years, Elrod and Barker have been implementing more statistics standards into a mathematics content course titled Geometry and Data for K-8 Teachers. As part of this implementation, students work on a project where they engage with CODAP (an online statistical software tool) to create a story about data. This gives students an opportunity to engage with statistical storytelling in a way that they may find useful in their own classrooms. The increased implementation in statistics standards has resulted in higher levels of conceptual understanding of statistics for these students. In reviewing the data stories students create, results have shown that these students are doing very well in engaging in different phases of the statistical investigation process.

Barker and Elrod are excited about the positive feedback received from conference attendees, and intend to write a larger manuscript in the future about this work.

The North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCCTM) is a statewide and regional leader in mathematics education, serving as a primary resource for information about and for guidance in ensuring effective mathematics education for all students.

Elrod brings with her years of experience to help lead the state. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Appalachian State University, both in mathematics education. Additionally, she completed a doctorate in Learning and Teaching in STEM: Mathematics Education in May 2022.

Elrod currently teaches mathematics courses for ������Ƶ as well as courses to support preservice teachers. She spent seven years in the North Carolina K-12 public school system, five years as a high school mathematics teacher and another two years as a curriculum specialist. Her expertise as a mathematics educator is only enhanced by having these years of experience in high school classrooms.

Elrod’s experience as the NCCTM President helps increase ties and public service to the surrounding communities in North Carolian and ������Ƶ.

The theme for this year’s conference was “Communicating with/about Data.” Sessions for the conference focused on two broad subthemes: helping students to become better communicators of the process and results of their statistical analysis and helping teachers become better communicators to their students to develop their understanding of statistical concepts and statistical methods.

In addition to attending keynote talks, sessions and poster sessions, each of the faculty members shared their own experiences around the conference theme.

Barker and Bussberg shared their experiences with using alternative grading methods in their statistics classes during a poster session titled, “Alternative grading practices for statistics courses.” Bussberg shared his experience using an ungrading approach, and Barker shared her experience using specifications grading.

Participants were eager to ask questions about these methods as well as share their own experiences.

VanKrevelen, Dellinger and Barker presented a poster based on research they conduction alongside Mark Weaver. The poster was titled “A multi-instructor creation and implementation of a free question bank for introductory statistics.” This poster highlighted the work of a group of six introductory statistics instructors to create a free, online question bank that can be used by all introductory statistics instructors at ������Ƶ. This is an alternative to question banks that are linked to text books that students have to pay to access. The work done by these instructors was supported by an ������Ƶ Student Government Association-Academic Technology Committee Open Educational Resources Grant.

Taylor and Bussberg presented a poster titled “Alumni writing in statistics in early careers.” Taylor and Bussberg investigated the writing habits of alumni who had graduated from ������Ƶ’s statistics and data analytics program. Alumni indicated the importance of writing in their early statistical careers and the importance of being able to write concisely to non-statistical audiences. These findings will shape writing instruction in statistics courses.

Barker and Elrod led a breakout session titled “Developing data storytellers using story builder in CODAP.” During this session, they led participants through using a plug-in developed for CODAP (a free, dynamic, online statistical software) called “Story Builder.” This plug-in allows users to create a digital story to showcase their exploration of a dataset. They also shared research they are doing using data stories collected from ������Ƶ students in a mathematics course for K-8 preservice teachers. Preliminary results show that this tool is useful in giving students a voice in communicating with data.

The USCOTS conference is held every other year, beginning first in 2005. This was the first time this conference was held in person since 2019 after the 2021 conference shifted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a refreshing experience to hear from so many statistics educators around the country and get to spend time with colleagues in person. USCOTS is organized by the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (), which is “a  national organization whose mission is to support the advancement of undergraduate statistics education.”

Multiple faculty members received CATL Travel Grants to support their conference participation.

Barker’s first session, titled “Developing Data Storytellers Using Story Builder,” highlighted a plug-in available in CODAP (Common Online Data Analysis Platform), a free online statistical software. CODAP is a powerful tool to help visualize datasets. The plug-in is helpful in giving students the power to tell their own stories using data. She co-presented with her colleague Asli Mutlu, assistant professor of mathematics at Wake Technical Community College.

The second session, titled “Teaching Statistics for Social Justice,” highlighted the efforts Barker has used to infuse datasets, assignments and activities into her statistics courses that focus on issues around social justice. During the session, she shared a literature review she is working on, activities that she has used, as well as the beginnings of a framework to create tasks specific to teaching social justice in statistics. This session was particularly well attended and led to fruitful discussions about the constraints many in the state have faced when trying to introduce similar topics in their own courses.

Before joining the faculty at ������Ƶ, Barker taught community college courses in North Carolina for five years and served on the board of NCMATYC for four years. She is a lifetime member of NCMATYC and enjoys presenting and attending this conference each year.