🎉 Exciting News! 🎉

I just received final ethics approval for a related research project titled “Undercover data science: Empowering educators to use code-driven tools for doing and teaching data science at the introductory level“. This project involves running a Professional Development (PD) programme for interested high school teachers within Aotearoa New Zealand during 2025. The full advertisement for this research project and details of how to express interest are given below.

Are you are interested in professional development for teaching data science at the senior high school level? This research project explores the design of professional development (PD) for introductory level data science. We need up to 20 teacher volunteers who are currently teaching at the senior high school level, have access to a computer with a stable internet connection outside of school hours, and who can self-fund travel to attend an in-person workshop in either Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland or Ōtautahi Christchurch. Participation will involve engaging with a PD programme that will run from the start of March 2025 to the beginning of December 2025. Most of the PD activities will take place online, with one in-person workshop during November 2025. The data will be used to inform future research into the area of data science education and to guide professional development of pre- and in-service statistics and data science teachers. If you are interested in participating in this research, please contact Anna Fergusson (a.fergusson@auckland.ac.nz) for further information. Please also feel free to share this advertisement with your colleagues or other teachers who you think might be interested. Approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee on 3/12/2024 for three years. Reference Number 28278.

The text within the image above is as follows:

Are you are interested in professional development for teaching data science at the senior high school level? This research project explores the design of professional development (PD) for introductory level data science. We need up to 20 teacher volunteers who are currently teaching at the senior high school level, have access to a computer with a stable internet connection outside of school hours, and who can self-fund travel to attend an in-person workshop in either Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland or Ōtautahi Christchurch. Participation will involve engaging with a PD programme that will run from the start of March 2025 to the beginning of December 2025. Most of the PD activities will take place online, with one in-person workshop during November 2025. The data will be used to inform future research into the area of data science education and to guide professional development of pre- and in-service statistics and data science teachers. If you are interested in participating in this research, please contact Anna Fergusson (a.fergusson@auckland.ac.nz) for further information. Please also feel free to share this advertisement with your colleagues or other teachers who you think might be interested. Approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee on 3/12/2024 for three years. Reference Number 28278.

I’m also thrilled to share that I’ve received my first external grant as an early career researcher, as part of the New Zealand-German Academic Exchange Programme, supported by Education New Zealand | Manapou ki te Ao and DAAD German Academic Exchange Service. The grant enables us to bring together data science education researchers from The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau and Paderborn University to work collaboratively on a project titled “Preparing high school students for a data science future: Developing innovative teaching methods at the interface of statistics and computer science education”. I’m so looking forward to working with, and learning from, Rolf Biehler, Stephanie Budgett, Michelle Dalrymple, Yannik Fleischer, Sven Hüsing, Susanne Podworny, and Malia Puloka – as well as the wider team of researchers at both universities!

I was a high school statistics teacher for 12 years before moving to the University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau, and have been involved with curriculum and assessment projects at the high school level for my entire teaching career. I am thrilled to be supported by this grant to continue my work in supporting teachers to engage with ākonga in the important space of data science and statistics education.