One of the first things I noticed is the class they offer a class for teachers to learn more about data science. Although it costs $150, it is a self paced class that offers access for a full year and you get 3 CEU's so it might go towards your recertification depending on your state. They state when you are done, you will be prepared to teach data science.
In addition, they provide the five lessons on the web page so you can use the lessons in your classroom. The first lesson introduces students to the idea that data is everywhere we look from the newspaper to the news, from stuff they send home to the census. The second lesson focuses on working with data analysis tools, while the third discusses measures of center and spread. The fourth one looks at understanding viability and the fifth lesson, looks at a community data project. All lessons come with everything you need to teach it including timing, background, and general information with links.
In addition, there is a high school data science course available for free but you have to sign up for it. The course is designed for high school students to learn about data science and it has 6 units already posted. The first unit of this one shows students that data is all around us but the second one focuses on the data of your community while the third looks at the water in everyone's lives. The fourth discusses the shuffling of songs in play lists but the fifth one focuses on skin tone and representation in the media and the sixth has students looking at different places to live and ranking them based on certain data. There are two more planned units that have not been posted yet. One is on making predictive models and machine learning while the other one explains what data scientists do.
If you look at the first unit, the one they allow you to check out before you sign up. The unit indicates it is designed to take four weeks and comes with all the slides needed, suggestions for covering the lesson, a set of weekly student reflections, and all the technology resources needed. In addition to providing student handouts, it provides samples of student answers so you have an idea of what is acceptable.
Furthermore, it provides both mindset and data science messages, concept organizers for students, information for student portfolios to show what they learned and any software requirements before the lessons are provided. The unit is divided into nine sections and each section has links for each activity such as a video, data talk, data analysis, group work, etc.
There is currently enough material to teach a one semester class but once everything has arrived, one should be able to teach a one year long class much like any classes in high school. I like that it has everything needed to teach the class. Data science is an important class to teach in high school because it is a growing field in the world.
Many activities use data from CODAP or The Concord Consortium's Common Online Data Analysis Platform. I will do a more in-depth look on Friday at this site. There are also links to New York Times What's going on with this graph activities, and data talks. Furthermore, they provide a list of objectives for grades K to 10 along with tasks and data talks and teaching advice for all the grades along with the material needed.
This is a site you should explore yourself to see if it is one you could talk your district into letting you teach. Go ahead and check it out at here. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear. I hope I can teach this class sometime but at the pace students need not based on a pacing guide. Have a great day.
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