Science Education
The Department of Statistics, in cooperation with the College of Science and the University, is committed to excellence in statistical education. Many faculty members in the Department have distinguished records of teaching success as evidenced by the teaching awards they have received.
Members of the Department are involved in creating and revising courses in ways that respond to changing understanding of what helps students learn.
Dr. John Deely is a specialist in instruction who also specializes in Bayesian statistical research. Dr. Deely teaches
our largest course, STAT 113, Statistics and Society.
This course is aimed at students in the liberal arts
and related disciplines. It is non-traditional in
content, broader and less algebraic than traditional
courses. The philosophy of the course is that every educated person should be acquainted
with statistical reasoning. By presenting practical real life examples from many areas of society
and carefully demonstrating the elementary statistical techniques involved,
this acquaintance is readily available.
Ellen Gundlach, who coordinates STAT 225,
STAT 301 and
STAT 301I, attended the first U.S. Council on Teaching Statistics Conference at Ohio State in spring 2005. Other activities she is involved with include: filming a video for W.H. Freeman & Co. that shows statistics educators hands-on lecture activities that can be used for introductory statistics courses, and development of interactive applets for W.H. Freeman to accompany Professors George McCabe and David S. Moores' book, Introduction to the Practice of Statistics. 
Professor George McCabe, recently undertook a thorough revision of
STAT 301, Elementary Statistical Methods,
with the help of Ellen Gundlach. They introduced group projects and the use of
statistical software in a course taken by many students from less quantitative disciplines.
The leader of the Department's work in education has been Professor
David S. Moore. Professor Moore was one of the first three Purdue
faculty named Distinguished Professor for the Scholarship of Teaching.
He has written widely on statistics education, has received the
Mathematical Association of America's national award for distinguished
teaching, and was the first President of the International Association
for Statistical Education, as well as 1998 President of the American
Statistical Association. Some of Professor Moore's articles are
available on his
Web page. Although he has
recently retired, Professor Moore remains active in revising his
well-known texts and other writing. He has recently written the
introductory article for the forthcoming new edition of Statistics A
Guide to the Unknown and the overview article for a forthcoming set of
papers in The American Statistician in which several leading
departments describe their programs for preparing graduate students to
teach statistics.Purdue's Teaching Academy offers University-wide programs for mentoring, informing, and recognizing teachers. Statistics faculty have participated in the Academy's "Conversations on Teaching" program. The VIGRE grant to the Mathematics and Statistics Departments has sponsored brown-bag lunch sessions devoted to topics in teaching the mathematical sciences.
The Department of Statistics regularly offers courses in Purdue's Continuing Engineering Education, CEE, program. This program allows Purdue to extend it's knowledge-based resources into the world. It offers graduate and professional development courses, on-campus and off-campus programs, master's degree programs, and satellite teleconferences encompassing engineering and engineering-management disciplines.
Professor Jennings teaches STAT 512 to a CEE class.
