Teaching and Learning about Data Through Stories: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Title: Teaching and Learning about Data Through Stories: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Presenters: Lee Melvin Peralta (College of Education); Louise Jezierski (James Madison College)

Format: Paper Presentation

Date: May 10th, 2023

Time: 10:00 am - 11:15 am 

Room: 3201, Stem Building

Description:
In a 2018 report on data science education, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended that academic institutions encourage all undergraduate students, regardless of their backgrounds or career goals, to develop a basic understanding of data literacy and data science. In this paper, we build on the literature on undergraduate data literacy and data science education by discussing emerging findings from a new interdisciplinary course on data storytelling. The course was a freshman and sophomore research seminar involving the collaborative development of a survey instrument and the creation of corresponding data-driven stories. Through the survey, students sought to understand other undergraduate students' perspectives on the topics of food insecurity, healthcare, and economic mobility--topics that were chosen by the students and presented through various data visualizations. The course emphasized the role of stories, not only in representing the results of data analysis but also in understanding research practices through a storytelling lens. Recent literature suggests the importance for students to develop technical competency with data alongside an understanding of the sociopolitical and ethical dimensions of data. Emerging findings from the data storytelling course suggest an opportunity to leverage storytelling practices toward supporting students in developing a critical and creative orientation toward data. By attending to narrative structure, the materiality of storytelling, and the affective dimensions of stories, students were not only able to develop technical and critical skills toward data but also to address broader epistemological and ontological questions about the nature of knowledge production.