Make awesome statistical friends …

Welcome to the last of the 10 ways to embrace the awesomeness that is our statistics curriculum! And maybe one of the most important.

Teaching is an awesome job, made even “awesomer” by working with other teachers to get great stuff happening that benefits our students. Everyone needs friends and statistical friends are the best kind – they know how to deal with uncertainty after all! Talk lots and often about teaching statistics – this includes through email. If you can’t find enough statistical friends within your school than head online and find awesome teachers there. Statistical friends are also people that you can share geeky statistical things like in the slide above. This graph is of the number of new followers I got each day on the Future Learn course Data to Insight since it started, with a question to my statistical friend “How many followers do you think I will get tomorrow?” Her prediction was wrong but only a statistical friend will accept your mistakes, since of course we’re only ever pretty sure about things in statistics 🙂 It is also important to have a statistical best friend – someone who is an expert statistics teacher. Someone who can steer you in the right direction and get you to reflect on what matters most in teaching statistics. We are all still learning and we can all still improve in what we do as teachers. My personal development as a statistics teacher has been heavily shaped and influenced by friendships with amazing statistics teachers and statistics education researchers. Their time, advice, guidance and mentoring is a big reason why I think teaching statistics is awesome!