Data Analytics Learning Community

I was excited to send this email to my colleagues today. I am looking forward to participating in this learning community:

It is my pleasure to announce that Plymouth State University is the recipient of a grant from the Northeast Big Data Hub to develop a Data Analytics Learning Community (DALC). The DALC will begin officially with a 4 day data analytics workshop January 5-8, 2021 followed by a data analytics workday on January 11, 2021. As we wrote in the grant application:

The goal of the workshop will be to build faculty sense of competence, autonomy, and relatedness so that they feel able to effectively engage students in classroom activities that move beyond the traditional lecture and into the realm of using data science projects in the classroom. To achieve this, the content of the curriculum will focus on 1. Data science and analytics fundamentals; 2. Learning science to help faculty design classes that engage students in the ways we know that people learn best; 3. Domain specific applications of data science and analytics and how those applications can be incorporated into General Education classes. … [W]e plan to help faculty think about the ways in which data science and analytics can be applied to their discipline. Often, when professional development focuses on methodologies, tools, and strategies such as those related to data analytics, faculty find it difficult to think about how they might incorporate those methodologies, tools, and strategies into their classes. 

The DALC will build on the principles that serve as the foundation for our Integrated Cluster Learning Model: integration and interdisciplinarity, project-based learning, and open pedagogy.

… [A] faculty member must agree to: 1. Participate fully in the January workshop and work day; 2. Incorporate data analytics content and skills into at least one course by Spring 2022; and, 3. Share reflections about their data analytics work with the DALC as well as with the larger PSU community as appropriate.

Image Credit: The featured image is a screenshot of the email informing me of the award.