Teaching with Data

Initial Publication Date: October 22, 2013

Compiled by Nathan Grawe, Carleton College
This resource references and draws upon materials developed for Pedagogy in Action and Teach the Earth.

A 2009 survey of employers identified broad agreement about what higher education could emphasize to better prepare students for productive careers.

  • More than three-quarters of employers called for greater critical thinking/analytical reasoning and analysis/complex problem solving.
  • Roughly 70% wished for students to be better equipped to work in teams, be creative, understand concepts and developments in science and technology, and locate/organize/evaluate information
  • About two-thirds are looking for students who can understand and work with numbers.

Teaching with data can prepare students in these critical learning areas. What is more, research increasingly verifies that active engagement pedagogies increase retention (both in the sense of student recall of learning and persistence in a field of study) and promotes transfer. Thus, teaching with data can simultaneously nurture the broad learning attributes valued by employers while encouraging deeper and more persistent disciplinary content understanding.

What counts as "data" in teaching with data?

While some limit the definition of "data" to the raw output of an experiment or survey, this module takes a broader view that includes use of data collected or analyzed by others. This choice follows a definition developed by participants at the NSF-funded Using Data in Undergraduate Science Classrooms 2002 workshop:

Using data in the classroom is any learning process that uses observations defined in the most general sense as a fundamental component to the learning enterprise in a way that a) supports student inquiry and participation in the scientific method, b) supports effective evaluation of data uncertainties and applicability, and c) improved students' quantitative and critical thinking skills. The observation involved could be raw or derivative data streams that have been collected by students or professionals or simulated data derived from models.

Why Teach with Data?

This page summarizes most arguments for teaching with data. These range from discipline-specific gains like improved content retention to broader learning objectives like improved quantitative literacy and understanding ethical principles of scholarship. For those who are interested in learning more, this page also includes citations of works that summarize relevant scholarship.

How to Teach with Data

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of assignment details, you will need to answer three broad questions about the kinds of experience you want your students to have:

Assignment Design

Once you have decided you want teach with data, it's time to hammer out the details. This site presents seven best practices for assignment/course module creation that can help you create your new assignment and situate it successfully in the context of your course. In addition, we provide links to example assignments and discipline-specific web resources from which you can borrow ideas.

Assessment

Because teaching with data requires more of us as faculty, we shouldn't do it unless we can show ourselves that the effort is paying off. This section shares tools that can be used to assess student learning in the course as a whole and on individual assignments. The assignment assessment tools also may help to speed grading.



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