On November 14, 2024, CourseKata’s research community gathered for DREAM 2024, the second annual workshop dedicated to advancing research and fostering collaboration in statistics and data science education. Building on the momentum of last year’s inaugural event, DREAM 2024 featured lightning talks, lively discussions, and an atmosphere brimming with energy as each team presented findings and new projects to drive meaningful, large-scale impact. Here are some highlights and key takeaways!
Lightning Talks: Sparking Ideas and Advancing Research
The heart of DREAM 2024 was its lightning talks, where research teams presented data uncovering key challenges and promising solutions for statistics and data science education.
- High School Students’ Perceptions of R Programming, Matt Jackson, PhD, California State University, Los Angeles. This equity-focused study explored how high school students' attitudes toward R programming shifted during a statistics and data science course. While confidence increased and anxiety decreased overall, smaller improvements among racially marginalized students highlight areas for further equity-focused research.
- Assessing GPT-4’s Understanding of 'Data = Model + Error', Alice Xu, UCLA. By comparing GPT-4’s understanding to that of students, this research revealed parallels in misconceptions and highlighted the potential of AI as a tool for identifying and addressing learning gaps.
- Tracking Students’ Readiness to Learn, Shawn Schwartz, Stanford University. This talk explored how attentional states, measured through digital learning materials and laboratory tasks, influence students’ ability to engage with and retain new information over time.
- How Mindset Influences Learning Outcomes, Kristine Zheng, Stanford University. Focusing on mindset as a critical factor in student success, this randomized control trial on the CourseKata platform hopes to provide insights into how perceptions of learning as an opportunity versus an assessment of ability shape outcomes in statistics and data science courses.
- Plotwise: Facilitating Connection-Making with Interactive Visualizations, Stacy Shaw, Icy Zhang, & Lane Harrison, WPI & University of Wisconsin. Plotwise—a tool designed to help students dynamically connect statistical representations—generated excitement about its potential to transform how learners understand statistical concepts and how researchers gather data from student interactions with data visualizations.
Key Themes From Discussions
The discussions at DREAM 2024 were as energizing as the presentations, sparking research ideas and deepening respect for each team’s ingenuity and unique perspectives. Attendees found immense value in sharing their approaches and tools, leading to plans for cross-team collaborations, guest talks, and swapping code at their respective GitHub repositories. Here were some emerging themes:
- Equity in Data Science Education: The researchers valued disaggregation of data as they broke down potential barriers to access and differences in contexts particularly for racially marginalized students. There were a number of ideas about how to do system-level improvements to target these systemic inequities.
- Leveraging AI for Learning and Research: Insights into GPT-4’s strengths and limitations revealed new opportunities for using AI to enhance education, from autoscoring to addressing misconceptions.
- Mindset and Motivation: The role of mindset in student success resonated across the researchers, affirming the need for strategies that nurture growth-oriented perspectives and to study those effects longitudinally in authentic learning settings.
- Interactive Learning Tools: Innovations like Plotwise demonstrated how technology can bridge abstract concepts and improve learning experiences for diverse populations. Developing these tools and new methods of data capture in an improvement cycle can help learning science go beyond mere "evaluation" of a tool to improving systems of education.
Looking Ahead
As we reflect on the success of DREAM 2024, we’re reminded of the power of collaboration and innovation in advancing education. The insights shared during this event will undoubtedly shape the next generation of tools, curricula, and research aimed at equipping students with the skills they need to navigate a data-driven world.
Thank you to all who joined us for DREAM 2024! Your contributions and engagement made this year’s event a resounding success. We look forward to continuing this journey together and hope to see you at DREAM 2025.
In the meantime, stay connected with the latest updates, research highlights, and community news by following CourseKata on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter/X. Let’s keep the conversation going!
