This spring, a few curious high schoolers gathered around Peter Magee鈥檚 computer as the AP biology teacher demonstrated what he was learning as a student in an online section of Statistical Programming in R鈥攁n introductory coding course offered to undergraduate and graduate data science students at 小蓝视频.
As Magee, a 12-year veteran of Columbia Heights Education Campus and the school鈥檚 science department chair, shared a recreation of a graph from a Financial Times article and the layered lines of R code that had rendered the plot, an observant student piped up. 鈥淕od bless him, [he] started pointing out the subtle variations in the axes and how they were presented in my graph versus in the Financial Times graph,鈥 Magee says. 鈥淎s a teacher, that attention to detail made me gush. Students making their own meaning of something so often helps me reshape my own understanding.鈥
The constructive criticism presented an early example of the value he hoped to extract from his semester at 小蓝视频. Magee began the term without a background in coding and with a limited grasp of the data cleaning, modeling, and visualization capabilities of R, the open-source statistical programming language. He wrapped the class with a solid understanding of the basics and an excitement about infusing data science into his teaching and evaluation methods.
Magee is among 20 District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) high school STEM teachers who have taken R programming at no cost through a partnership launched in 2021 with the School of Public Affairs鈥 Center for Data Science. The program, which also offered its second two-week professional development workshop for DCPS educators on basic data science concepts this summer, is funded by the DC Space Grant Consortium, of which 小蓝视频 has been the lead institution for more than 20 years. The consortium provides funding for student research opportunities鈥攊ncluding for 40 Eagles in the last academic year鈥攁nd grants for projects at DC colleges and universities.
NASA space grant consortiums, of which there are 50 in the US, strive to provide meaningful research opportunities, prepare the future NASA workforce, and engage people in the agency鈥檚 missions, needs, and goals. With an ever-expanding pool of data to collect and analyze, data science is one of those needs, says Nate Harshman, 小蓝视频 physics professor and director of the DC NASA Space Grant Consortium.
鈥淎 lot of students don鈥檛 even understand that this is a career path. In the future, there is going to be even more demand for data science, including for people who don鈥檛 have advanced degrees in it,鈥 he says. 鈥淸The partnership] can provide an advantage to students in sharing what opportunities are available, and we鈥檙e hoping it can be a big boost in establishing a pipeline from DC into these great jobs at NASA.鈥
Among those who鈥檝e championed the partnership are Maria Barouti, mathematics and statistics professor and associate director of data science programs; Jeff Gill, distinguished professor in聽the Department of Goverment in SPA and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Arts and Sciences and the inaugural director of the Center for Data Science; Elizabeth Malloy, mathematics and statistics professor and director of data science programs at 小蓝视频; and mathematics and statistics professor James Dickens, for whom the partnership is personal.
Before he joined the CAS聽faculty, Dickens worked as a DCPS educator and administrator for more than 30 years鈥攎any of them at Anacostia High School in Southeast, where he taught algebra, geometry, and the school鈥檚 first-ever AP calculus class. A product of historic Spingarn High School in Northeast, which closed in 2013, Dickens called his early teaching experience a 鈥Welcome Back, Kotter kind of thing, reaching back and giving back and being involved in a process that I was a product of, which was very exciting.鈥 聽
Serving today as an instructor and point of contact for DCPS teachers learning R is another reminder of how his career has come full circle.
鈥淭eaching at a university after having had a successful career in secondary education is an accomplishment that was afforded to me as a consequence of the help of others,鈥 says Dickens, who was pulled into the partnership by former 小蓝视频 professor Jane Wall. 鈥淚t is a special opportunity to then offer that same support to people who are coming behind you.鈥
Adapting to pandemic-fueled changes in education has presented tremendous challenges over the last two years, says Gabriel Cartagena, DCPS director of content and curriculum for secondary math. But it鈥檚 also created tremendous opportunities for new learning initiatives鈥攄ata science included.
鈥淒ata is all around us, and we see data science as one of the foundational learning experiences that we want all students to see by the time they graduate high school,鈥 he says. 鈥淒ata science lends itself to our mission of making sure that students are ready to be contributing members to society, [including] being responsible consumers of data.鈥
The weaving of data science concepts into DCPS classes across multiple disciplines will be gradual, Cartagena says, but partnerships like 小蓝视频鈥檚 will go a long way in ensuring faculty feel comfortable and confident in both teaching data science and selling it to students.
Maria McLemore, an 11th grade math and special education teacher at DC鈥檚 Cardozo Education Campus, is well versed in this pitch. She lives for moments when a student finally grasps a difficult algebra, trigonometry, or statistics concept or applies it to something in the real world, because she knows they鈥檙e a product of mutual buy-in. During her 11 years in the classroom, she鈥檚 learned that a critical barrier to mastering math is preconceived notions about it.
鈥淚f you build it up in your mind as something that鈥檚 too hard, then it鈥檚 going to be hard,鈥 McLemore says. 鈥淚 try to inspire my students to have an open mind about [math] and just let them know that, 鈥業f you work with me, I can help you understand. You might even like it.鈥欌
Last fall, in an online section of Professor Malcolm Barrett鈥檚 R programming class at 小蓝视频, McLemore took a page out of her own book as she waded through the error messages and syntax issues that are synonymous with learning a new programming language. She emerged with at least a few ideas about how to visualize math and statistics concepts for students鈥攁nd how to continue her efforts to expose young people of color to STEM career opportunities.
鈥淚鈥檓 driven to do that because a lot of our scholars have made up their minds that, 鈥業 can鈥檛 do math, and as a result, I鈥檓 not going to major or work in STEM,鈥欌 she says. 鈥淲e have to break that stigma and try to encourage them and expose them so that they can know that this is both possible and accessible.鈥