In the 21st century, data is king. It is collected from users of all devices, and is processed and analyzed in fields like healthcare, finance, marketing, architecture, linguistics etc etc. We are developing an interdisciplinary course to be taught by 3 departments (Math/Statistics, Social Sciences, Computer Science) that would instruct students in discerning high quality data, conducting exploratory analyses in R, building models in R to explore relationships between two or more variables, presenting output graphically and numerically, interpreting the output, and presenting all results on a Shiny page. In the presentation, we will illustrate the logic of the course, discuss learning activities and the flow of the course, including a demonstration of a sample final project. We will then demonstrate our experience with deeply interdisciplinary approach to learning, teaching, and curriculum building.
Data Science is an increasingly important skill to learn for students in high school to promote empirical thinking. The interdisciplinary approach to the course will ensure that data analysis is covered comprehensively: from discerning high quality data to presenting lucid takeaways.
Brian Cook (Faculty: Wellesley, MA), Cloricia Townsend (Head of the Engineering and Computer Science Department: Wellesley, MA), Alla Baranovsky (Dana Hall School: Somerville, MA)