Hello, I'm Hollylynne Lee and once again I'm here with our expert panel, Webster, Chris, Susan, and I've got one final question that I want them to respond to, and that is, what are your hopes for the future of statistics education? Does anyone want to take a stab at going first? 

I'll start. 

All right, Webster. 

Yeah, so I hope we can really revamp the curriculum to focus on the types of problems that are important in today's world. You know, for example, we are so focused on inference right now at the introductory level and it turns out, if you have a lot of data, which we oftentimes do in today's world, inference isn't that interesting. The methods that we talk about for doing inference and things of that nature, really, once you have a few thousand observations per group, you know, it's not that interesting, it's the statistical significance that we commonly talk about in the introductory course, it's not an interesting subject any more. So, I would like to see us focus more on visualization, more on some of those real world things of cleaning up data, filtering and validating data, those are skills that I think we should really start building in to these courses. I mean, that's what employers need, and that's what skills you need to really answer questions in the real world. 

Yeah---yeah, and wouldn't it be nice if at the collegiate level, if you've got students who have had a really rich K-12 experience that come in and are kind of really ready to do that kind of thing. So, at the K-12 level, what are some of your hopes? 

I would like to see us return to the, I guess what the NC Principles and Standards did in data in K-5, so much that seem to have been shifted and changed in this current direction, if you put it back, we'd actually serve the elementary schools, but also would build the base that you need for middle schools. So we do see the holes at the middle school level of what students don't know, and we have to...almost have to start from scratch because there is...GAISE points out the levels that you have to go through, you have to get through that, is it Level A? 

Level A. 

Yeah, and it has to be done, and unfortunately, you don't have a way to do that in middle school right now because they go right for heavy duty conceptual background, measures of variability and things like that in middle school. And I think we know enough about data and kids learning at this point to think about building some trajectories where we talk about what happens, and while I think in the middle school, variability needs more attention, I would like us to think about a way to build it in so students make sense about it. Cleaning data sounds like a wonderful idea too, I mean, there's some things that really, at a middle school level would build off elementary at this point, and then you could move into these more sophisticated ideas of data, the variability and things like that. 

Chris, what are your hopes? 

Well, of course, I have to follow-up with what Susan said here, I'm a big proponent, we need to get statistics back in K-12, at least in terms of our national standards. I think there are some states that are still trying to keep some statistics at.... 

And worldwide...down at the elementary level. 

Right. 

At K-5. But the key point here though is, if the high stakes assessment tests are not assessing statistics at K-5, it's not going to be taught at K-5, because the assessment items, this is a test they really do drive, what's taught at the curriculum. 

Right. 

What are my goals for the future of Stat Education? Well, I think my main goal would have to be at the K-12 level that we can say that 'every high school graduate is statistically literate'. I mean, what an achievement that would be. Because regardless of whether they go on to college, or whether they're going into the work place, they need that 'be able to reason statistically' and for us to have provided that to them, I think is a mainstay. If I have one more big goal, it is working with our K-12 teachers. I've often said that our K-12 teachers are the key to our students becoming statistically literate. 

Yeah, I agree, I agree. 

It's not the college professors, it is the K-12 teachers. 

Right. 

They are the key. And I think that my goal would be to help our K-12 teachers become comfortable and to become confident that they can deliver the statistics curriculum. And, I think, what most K-12 teachers have discovered is that once they get their hands wet, they really like it. 

They do like it. 

They really like it. 

I bet you all like it after this MOOC. 

And they see that their students really like it, and they become engaged. So I would have to say those are my two big goals. 

Yeah, good. Thank you very much, this has been a fun MOOC and I have really enjoyed all my conversations with my friends. Thank you.