Department Qualifications
The University of Memphis has been driven to redesign our elementary statistics course since the 2014 Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) grant to develop and evaluate the use of Excel labs in the elementary statistics course. The goal of this project was to release the students from meaningless "plug and chug" type of computations and replace these tasks with spreadsheet computations that would allow for exploratory analysis to reveal important statistical concepts using real world, meaningful data sets. In 2016, a second redesign grant was received from the Tennessee Board of Regents to initialize the process of inverting the elementary statistics course. Under this grant, we developed fourteen modules with a video and article for each that the students are responsible for watching and reading prior to class and a set of at least one in-class activity that the students would complete during class time. The results of this grant lay the foundation for the project proposed here.
Expertise of Principle Investigators and Senior Personnel
All senior personnel have experience teaching elementary statistics. Three team members were recipients of the 2016 TBR redesign grant to pilot the SELES classroom. Two team members received a 2014 TBR redesign grant to add Excel labs in the elementary statistics course.
Associate Professor Dale Bowman has been teaching math and statistics for twenty years. Previously, as an associate professsor at the University of Mississippi, she served as course coordinator for the elementary statistics course and spear headed the revision of the course from a traditional intro to statistics course to a statistical literacy course using a textbook she helped review, Seeing through Statistics, by former American Statistical Association president Jessica Utts. She is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at UofM. She has taught elementary statistics at the University of Memphis and previously served as course coordinator. She was on the team that received two TBR redesign grants designed to improve instruction in the elementary statistics courses. She was primarily responsible for writing the in-class activities for each module in the SELES classroom. She will be directing the project and will be fully involved in all aspects including handling administrative responsibilities.
Assistant Professor Leigh Harrell-Williams is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Research in the College of Education at the University of Memphis. She received her PhD in Educational Research and Evaluation at Virginia Tech in 2009. She has been teaching statistics for over 15 years. Prior to coming to UofM, she was an instructor and the undergraduate program coordinator in the Department of Statistics at Virginia Tech for 8 years. She has publications in top journals in statistics education. She was an Executive Board Member at Large for the American Statistical Association Section on Statistics Education and serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Statistics Education and the Statistics Education Research Journal. She will be responsible for the analysis of the research questions on this project. She will also participate in the conduction of the training workshop to be help at the University of Memphis in Summer 2020 and the workshop to be conducted at the national meeting. She will also be a major participant in the preparation of the research paper highlighting the results of this project.
Instructor Nataliya Doroshenko has been teaching mathematics and statistics courses for over fifteen years. She is a member of the team that received the most recent TBR redesign grant where her efforts were focused on obtaining videos for each module and in teaching a pre-pilot section of elementary statistics in the summer 2016. Her expertise in teaching flipped-classroom is incontestable. She received,as a co-lead investigator, a TBR grant in 2018 for college algebra redesign. She is the recipient of the Thomas W. Briggs award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. In the current project, she will take the lead on the internal and external workshops and will teach sections of Math 1530.
Professor John Haddock is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Memphis.He was the recipient of the Thomas W. Briggs Foundation Teaching Award in 2011, Named Dunavant Professor of Mathematics in 2009 and the Meritorious Faculty Award in 1992 . He is a former program director for mathematical sciences in the Division for Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation. One of his primary research interests is STEM education. He will be the liaison between the project team and the Advisory Board and will guide the team through the formative evaluation process. The project evaluation, though, will be independent through the Advisory Board and will be guided by evaluation expert, Dr. Rowell.
Instructor Alpha Ba has been teaching math and statistics for 12 years. He has extensive experience in designing and lecturing Math courses by incorporating technology such as Webassign, Aleks, MyMathLab and MyLabsPlus. He was the Lead investigator and recipient of a TBR grant in 2017-2018 to redesign college algebra and a co-investigator recipient of another TBR grant in 2018-2019 for Teaching Statistics with Social Justice. He was Nominated for the Thomas W. Briggs Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018 and for the Susan Te Paske "See Me" award in 2020. His primary responsibility in the current project will be in designing the website, building the Facebook page, and teaching sections of the flipped classroom.
Instructor Manohar Aggarwal has been teaching statistics courses for more than thirty years. He regularly teaches multiple sections of elementary statistics each semester. He has also been on the team that received two TBR redesign grants for the U of M elementary statistics course. He was responsible for preparing and consolidating assessments during the pre-award stage. He will be primarily responsible for coordinating the internal and external workshops.
Instructor Misty Freeman has been teaching undergraduate mathematics, including Probability and Statistics, for over 30 years. She earned a BS and a MS in Mathematics from the University of Mississippi, and currently serves as an Instructor at the University of Memphis. Recent projects include implementing a TBR grant to teach Statistics through Social Justice and being selected as 1 of 5 educators by the Tennessee Department of Education as a Probability and Statistics Team Member. She received,as a co-lead investigator, a TBR grant in 2018 for college algebra redesign. Her primary responsibility will be to teach sections of the flipped-classroom