The Future of Education

There is an increasing importance of statistical literacy for everyday life, almost every economic and scientific activity in the modern world relies on statistical information in one way or another. It plays a prominent role in business and industry, aspects of government and scientific and economic progress. Students are now living in a society that demands evidence-based arguments and decisions.

There are a number of challenges facing education in the use of statistics and data:  i) the volumes of information available, ii) the slow response of education and curricula to change, iii) the need for innovative teaching and learning approaches and iv) the absence of significant research in European statistical education.

The I-Use consortium investigated the use of statistics in a.o. the geography curricula of the participating countries. Statitics appear mostly in the curricula of mathematics (where it is a separate item) and in history, although the statistics as a source for real investigation is mostly denied.

The I-Use project deals with data, statistics and pedagogical approaches with their applications to various areas in secondary school curricula. The I-USE Comenius Project aims to:

• help cope with the over-abundance information-rich resources
• encourage teachers engage their students in learning to use statistics and work with statistics
• make statistical education more visible under the LLLP
• prepare teachers for the technology-mediated nature of working with statistical information
• keep up with Web-based innovation
• develop teachers classroom statistical competence
• provide training for teachers of different subjects

Its goal is to create an in-service teacher training course dealing with how to make sense of information through different presentation forms and media. A first tryout of this course will take place in Greece in September 2014.  Trainees will examine how to develop students’ statistical thinking through sophisticated and innovative web-based tools to support the learning process.

After one year running the project has already developed a toolbox, fully integrated with the web site and be based on the surveyed needs of students and teachers.

The tools will make full use of mobile devices (like tablets) and (web)GIS, as it is a simple yet powerful method of visualizing statistical investigation, and this not only in geography.

I-Use will also deal with the assessment of student learning making the distinction between assessment of learning (summative) and assessment for learning (formative) approaches. This will be addressed through three basic components, cognition, observation and interpretation that underlie all forms of evaluation.