Using grayscale photos to introduce high school statistics teachers to reasoning with digital image data

Abstract

Statistics teaching at the high school level needs modernizing to include digital sources of data that students interact with every day. Algorithmic modelling approaches are recommended, as they can support the teaching of data science and computational thinking. Research is needed about the design of tasks that support high school statistics teachers to learn new statistical and computational approaches such as digital image analysis and classification models. Using our design framework, the construction of a task is described that introduces classification modelling using grayscale digital images. The task was implemented within a teaching experiment involving six high school statistics teachers. Our findings from this exploratory study indicated that the task design seemed to support statistical and computational thinking practices related to classification modelling and digital image data.