Gundlach Inducted into Purdue's Teaching Academy

10-07-2008

Congratulations to Ellen Gundlach, Continuing Lecturer in Statistics, on being named an Associate Fellow in Purdue's Teaching Academy. She, along with thirteen others, was inducted into the Teaching Academy at a ceremony on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 7:30pm in the East and West Faculty Lounges of the Purdue Memorial Union.

Gundlach is the coordinator, online course developer, and an instructor for STAT 301, and the course coordinator for STAT 225. She finds incorporating fun, hands-on activities into the classroom helps students understand and master elementary statistical methods. Some of the innovative teaching methods she's incorporated into the classroom include using paper airplanes to teach experimental design, using gummy-bear popsicle-stick catapults to teach one-way and two-way ANOVA, using M&Ms to teach two-way tables, and using chocolate chip cookies to teach the t tests and confidence intervals. Writing about statistics is also a key component in STAT 301, and she is one of the first instructors at Purdue to incorporate the Calibrated Peer Review online writing and peer evaluation system developed by UCLA.

Gundlach is interested in developing materials to help other educators be more successful in teaching statistical concepts to their students. Some of these activities 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; development of interactive applets for W.H. Freeman to accompany Professors George McCabe, David S. Moore, and Bruce Craig's book, Introduction to the Practice of Statistics; and writing the Instructor's Guide and the Student Solutions Manual for Moore, McCabe, Duckworth and Alwan's The Practice of Business Statistics, 2nd edition. Gundlach is also serving as Co-PI on an NSF-funded project with PI Dr. Nancy Pelaez from Purdue's Department of Biological Sciences which will incorporate statistical literacy writing assignments into a freshman biology class. As the faculty advisor for STATCOM P-12 Outreach, a graduate student run organization, she spreads her passion for teaching statistics to both graduate students and P-12 teachers in the local community.

In 2007 Gundlach was awarded the David S. Moore Service Teaching Award and the College of Science Graduate Student Mentoring Award.