TeachingWithData.org Outreach Presentation

TeachingWithData.org Resources for Teaching

Quantitative Literacy in the Social Sciences

Agenda

• The Teaching with Data project– Goals– What is quantitative reasoning?– Project partners– What’s in the TwD?

• Examples of teaching resources in the TwD– ICSPR – Teaching Modules – social capital– General Social Survey – Quick Tables –

religion– Population Reference Bureau – immigration– SSRIC – Teaching Resources – social issues

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Goals• Improve students’ quantitative

reasoning• Give students first hand experience

with analyzing and interpreting data• Provide faculty with resources to

bring data into the classroom• Provide faculty with ready-to-use

data sets and exercises

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What is Quantitative Reasoning?

• “higher-order reasoning and critical thinking skills needed to understand and to create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative data.”

• National Numeracy Network (http://serc.carleton.edu/nnn/resources/index.html)

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Teaching With Data

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Project Partners• ICPSR (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu) • SSDAN (http://www.ssdan.net) • Others involved

– American Economic Association Committee on Economic Education

– American Political Science Association– American Sociological Association– Association of American Geographers– Science Education Resource Center, Carleton

College

ICPSR: Inter-university Consortium for Political and

Social Research• Web site: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu• World’s oldest and largest social science

data archive• Over 700 members worldwide• Currently has over 7,800 studies

available in multiple formats including SPSS, SAS, STATA, and SDA

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SSDAN: Social Science Data Analysis Network

• Web site: http://www.ssdan.netMakes U.S. census data

and other large data sets accessible to users

• Includes– Data Counts –

http://www.ssdan.net/datacounts – CensusScope –

http://www.censusscope.org – Kids Count –

http://ssdan.net/?q=node/16 10

What’s in the TwD?

• Teaching exercises using real data• Maps, charts and tables• Data that you can use to create

your own teaching exercises• Publications focusing on pedagogy• Meta data for easy searching

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Disciplines Covered in TwD (with number of entries)

• Sociology (502)• Economics (370)• Political Science (226)• Geography (148)• Public Health (99)• Public Policy (77)• Environmental Sciences (75)• History (68)• Social Work (25)• Anthropology (3)

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TwD is Searchable

• Simple and advanced searching– By discipline– By subject

• Browsing– Filtering to narrow results– Can start with discipline or subject or

type of resources

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Example – ICPSR – Social Capital

• ICPSR has developed data-driven teaching modules. This module on social capital uses SDA (an online statistical package) http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICSC/

• This module can be used in its entirety or chunks of it can be integrated into a class as a student exercise

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Example – General Social Survey – Quick Tables –

Religion • Quick Tables is an easy way for students to

explore relationships among variables in a data set http://sda.berkeley.edu/quicktables/quicksetoptions.do?reportKey=gss08%3A1

• This resource can easily be integrated into a lecture or class discussion focusing on religion and society

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Example – Population Reference Bureau –

Immigration • PRB provides population data and

teaching exercises for the classroom http://prb.org/Educators/LessonPlans/2005/TheChangingFaceofAmerica.aspx

• This exercise could easily be used as a student exercise to introduce students to the topic of immigration

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Example – SSRIC – Social Issues

• The Social Science Research and Instructional Council (SSRIC) has many teaching exercises and modules as well as data sets http://diva.sfsu.edu/bundles/187700

• These exercises could be used in a class on critical thinking to provide experience in hypothesis formulation and testing. It could also be used in other contexts

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Try it!

• Go to website at http://www.teachingwithdata.org

• Browse by your discipline• Find something you think will work

in one of your classes• Give it a try this year

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Keep in Mind

• Be sure and work through the exercise before using it in class

• Why?- Sometimes you might want to rewrite parts

of the exercise for clarity• Don’t be reluctant to modify the exercise

to make it more useful to you. It always a good idea to let the author know what you are doing

• Give yourself plenty of lead time

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Contact for More Information

• Placeholder for local contact information

• TeachingWithData.org – twdstaff@icpsr.umich.edu

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