News

CensusAtSchool NZ is undergoing a major facelift/restructure.

The new website has been redesigned to put teacher needs in the new curricular and assessment environment at the heart of what the site delivers. We aim to be a current, comprehensive, resource bank for the Teaching of Statistics in NZ.

The new website is temporarily situated at https://new.censusatschool.org.nz and coexists with the old website http://www.censusastchool.org.nz until the end of the school year. Over the summer break, once the current census is closed, everything is planned to be transferred over to the new website. Once that’s completed, we’ll just have the new website at www.censusatschool.org.nz.

CensusAtSchool began as website in which students could participate in an online survey and contribute to an international database. Real data can then be analysed and used by schools. Teachers are able to receive their class data and there are a variety of classroom resources available on CensusAtSchool to direct their teaching of statistics.

Statistics has changed significantly in New Zealand over the last few years. As statistical practice has become computer based, there is much less need to be able to calculate statistics manually. Rather, students are being encouraged to consider the context, reason and origin of the data. The focus of assessment has also changed, with NCEA Level 2 being reorganised this year and new Achievement Standards for NCEA Level 3 drafted for next year. We found that teachers all over New Zealand use CensusAtSchool at times so that it is a good place to host and index Statistics resources and professional development.

CensusAtSchool’s website has been completely reorganised, updated and expanded to be a comprehensive and practical resource for teachers.

Everything is now grouped by the curriculum level and achievement standards. For each curriculum level and achievement standard relating to the teaching of statistics, teachers will find: details of the standard, detailed FAQ, vetted activities, resources and links to further their knowledge.

Everything is also now easily printable for teachers to have at their fingertips, along with the ability for them to provide feedback by rating and commenting on resources.

There is now a place to ask a statistics question called FAQ. Teachers can email a question to censusatschoolnz@gmail.com which will be answered carefully by one of a number of ‘experts’ and posted online.

Links to a large number of websites such as NZQA, TKI, Stats NZ, and Stats Chat, means teachers can always find relevant current material, competitions, road shows and articles.

We encourage teachers to contribute resources to the CensusAtSchool website so if you come across something good that we have missed or have any feedback on the new site please email us: censusatschoolnz@gmail.com.

We hope you enjoy using the new website,

Regards

The CensusAtSchool team.

Auckland, November 1, 2012: More than 500 teachers are expected to flock to a national road tour this month that aims to support their teaching of a new statistics curriculum to Year 13 students.

The road tour starts in Auckland on November 22 and travels to Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington, offering presentations and real-life resources to help teachers make the most of the curriculum from the start of the 2013 school year. More than 15,000 New Zealand students studied Year 13 statistics in 2011, the last year for which figures are available. Continue reading »

Registrations are now open for the Statistics Teachers’ Day, Thursday 22nd November and will close on Wednesday 7 November (or earlier if full).

For more information about the day and to register, go to: Statistics Teachers’ Day 2012.

When you register you will need to choose one workshop for each of the 4 sessions and a further 2 back-up choices. These may be from any session but should be different to your other 4 choices. Registration for workshops will be on a first-in, first–served basis. In the event of one (or more) of your choices being full we will first try and accommodate you by offering you the same 4 workshops in a different mix of sessions. If we cannot do that we will use one (or both) of your back-up choices. We strongly encourage schools with more than one person attending to converse before making workshop choices and choose different workshops, to ensure that there is space for people from other schools.

7,150 secondary school students from 216 schools completed CensusAtSchool Ireland survey between August 2011 and August 2012.

The questionnaire covered topics ranging from what students have for breakfast, the types of sports they participate in, where they keep their mobile phones and how much they knew about the Olympics.

Read some of the findings »

Dr Patricia O’Hara, Chairperson of the National Statistics Board in Ireland formally launches their new CensusAtSchool Ireland questionnaire today.

There’s a few new questions in it, along with ones in common with our one here in New Zealand. View their questionnaire »

CensusAtSchool is mentioned in the current edition of the Education Gazette (October 15, 2012) in Secondary Focus article “Making statistics real for learners”. Read the article online »

The US Bureau of Labour has released this optimistic statement on job prospects for statisticians:

Employment of statisticians is projected to grow 14 percent from 2010 to 2020, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Growth will result from more widespread use of statistical analysis to make informed decisions. In addition, the large increase in available data from the Internet will open up new areas for analysis.

Government agencies will employ more statisticians to improve the quality of the data available for policy analysis. This occupation will also see growth in research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences, where statisticians’ skills in designing tests and assessing results prove highly useful.

Statisticians will continue to be needed in the pharmaceutical industry. As pharmaceutical companies develop new treatments and medical technologies, biostatisticians will be needed to do research and conduct clinical trials. Research and testing are necessary to help companies obtain approval for their products from the Food and Drug Administration.

A large amount of data is generated from Internet searching. Businesses will need statisticians to organize, analyze, and sort through the data for commercial reasons.

Do you want to know more about teaching Year 13 Statistics? Then take note of the following.

To assist NZ teachers in learning about the Year 13 Statistics Curriculum and Standards we have organised a programme of professional development to be delivered in association with the AMA, CMA, OMA, and WMA. To find out about how to register for these days please email the contact person or go to the Association website.

Auckland

Thursday 22 November, Tamaki Campus

AMA Contact: Ross Parsonage (r.parsonage@auckland.ac.nz )

Christchurch

Tuesday 27 November, University of Canterbury Maths/Stats Dept

CMA Contact: Kristian Giles (gilesk@staff.cbhs.school.nz )

Dunedin

Wednesday 28 November, Otago University

OMA Contact: Munro Doran (munro.doran@obhs.school.nz )

Wellington

Saturday 1 December, Wellington Girls’ College – Pipitea Block Level 1

WMA Contact: Nada Andic (nada.andic@qmc.school.nz )

Proposed Road Tour Programme

Plenary Talk – Changing Needs in a Changing World by Chris Wild and Maxine Pfannkuch, Auckland University

Workshops offered:

• 3.8 Time Series, A new look at time series analysis using iNZight – Rachel Passmore, Saint Kentigern College (NZ Royal Society Endeavour Teacher Fellow) and Ruth Kaniuk, Lynfield College
• 3.9 Bivariate Data, Investigating bivariate measurement data using iNZight – Ruth Kaniuk, Lynfield College and Maxine Pfannkuch, Auckland University
• 3.10 Formal inference: Conducting and assessing sample-to-population investigations – Michelle Dalrymple, Cashmere High School
• 3.10 Formal inference: Bootstrap method – Joss Cumming, Auckland University
• 3.11 Experiments: Conducting and Assessing Experiments – Anna Martin, Avondale College
• 3.11 Experiments: Randomisation method – Marie Fitch, Auckland University
• 3.12 Statistical Literacy: Surveys and Non-sampling errors – Dru Rose, Westlake Girls High School
• 3.12 Statistical Literacy: The Margin of Error – Dru Rose, Westlake Girls High School
• 3.13 Apply probability concepts – Marion Steel, Team Solutions (Epsom Girls Grammar School)
• 3.14 Apply probability distributions – Marion Steel, Team Solutions (Epsom Girls Grammar School)
• Risk (Relates to 2.12)– Stephanie Budgett, Auckland University

The Road Tour has been made possible through support from the following:

The Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (www.tlri.org.nz); Department of Statistics, Auckland University; CensusAtSchool; the Principals of Lynfield College, Cashmere High School, Westlake Girls High School, and Avondale College; NZ Royal Society Endeavour Teacher Fellowship Scheme; and Team Solutions.

Your students are invited to enter the ISLP Statistics Poster Competition for 2012-2013.

The theme for the 2012 – 2013 competition is Agriculture.

Entry is free. Posters are to be prepared in teams of two or three students for an investigation into an issue of interest using the statistical enquiry cycle on any topic within the general theme “Agriculture” (for example, agriculture and domesticated animals/food/industry/urban development etc.).

Data used can be collected by students or be previously published by someone else. If the data is published, the source must be cited in the poster. Posters must be the original design and creation of students. The poster must be on one single sheet, one-sided with maximum size A1. Maximum file size is 2 MB.

Posters must not contain any information about students or schools that prepared them. All entries become the property of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and cannot be returned. By submitting a poster, students give permission for their work to be displayed at various ISI conferences, special events, in publications and promotional material, and in electronic format on the Internet.

There is further support material available on the International Statistical Literacy Project website, including guidelines for making a statistical poster, judging criteria and links to the ISLP registration form and on Facebook

The competition is divided into two age categories:

• students born in 1997 and younger [approximately Year 7 – 10] and,
• students born in 1994 and younger [approximately Years 11 – 13]

Prizes for National Winners will be awarded to the best posters in each age category.

1st Prize in each age category is $500

We thank our sponsors – AGResearch, New Zealand Statistical Association, NZAMT, University of Waikato and University of Auckland – Department of Statistics – for their support.

Important dates

• Preparation of posters in schools: Term 4 2012 and Term 1 2013
• Submission of posters to National Coordinator: 29 March 2013
• National Winners Announced: 1 May 2013
• International Winners Announced: ISI 2013 Hong Kong

For further information contact:

National Coordinator Dr Sashi Sharma,
Faculty of Education
University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton 3240

Teachers have been telling us that it is very hard to navigate in the landscape of new curriculum materials, achievement standards, exemplars, teaching resources and so on. Because everything is so scattered, it Is often almost impossible to find what you need.

To overcome this Tracey Meek and Lindsay Smith have put together a CensusAtSchool resource which starts with each achievement standard and then links to all relevant resources that we know about. We provide a summary of resources for each Achievement Standard providing links to NZQA, exemplars, TKI, PowerPoint presentations, teaching resources and background articles.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/9kuo52f

Continue reading »