Demystifying Impossible Things: Alternative Strategies for Statistics Pedagogy in Higher Education

• In Event: Learning and Development Through Pedagogical Designs

Abstract

Statistics routinely intimidates and mystifies students. Conventional statistics pedagogies, centered in the banking concept of education (Freire, 2000), do little to help students who feel they have been dropped in a strange land with no way to understand, communicate, and participate. In addition, traditional conceptions of classroom structure perpetuate majoritarian power structures and pose a barrier for those who inhabit minority and marginal spaces and those whose perceptions of proficiency place them at a disadvantage. This project works to transform traditional statistics pedagogy and demystify statistics through alternative pedagogical methods from various disciplines, moving statistics from the impossible to the very possible for all students.

Authors

• Ashley B. Akenson, Tennessee Technological University

• Randall D. Williams, Tennessee Technological University