The Department of Statistics is pleased to announce that Teaching Assistant Professor Kit Clement has been named co-editor of the journal Technology Innovations in Statistics Education (TISE).
TISE is an open-access journal dedicated to advancing how technology can enhance the teaching and learning of statistics and data science across educational settings—from pre-K–12 to higher education and professional training. The journal publishes work in areas such as designing technology to improve teaching, using technology to deepen conceptual understanding, and teaching technology to build data skills.
For Professor Clement, the appointment holds special significance. “The very first article published to TISE in 2007 is basically the motivation for all of the research work that I do in simulation-based inference,” he explained. “George Cobb wrote this editorial about how introductory statistics has been taught like Ptolemy teaching that the solar system revolves around the earth—we chose the t-test and the central limit theorem as the key central pieces of an introductory statistics curriculum, but this doesn't actually give students any real tangible understanding of why these things work the way they do. Using technology and simulation tools to skip these theoretical pieces for a general audience puts the focus back on inferential reasoning and what inferences can be made from a statistical analysis, akin to putting the sun back at the center of our solar system.” He added, “I think that so much foundational work in statistics education has been inspired from Cobb's work as well as many other authors, so it's exciting to me to keep this legacy going.”
Clement also noted how closely the journal’s mission aligns with his own professional work. “Technology is central to both how I teach and research,” he said. “To teach effectively in today's times, you have to leverage technology in so many ways to make your courses more effective in delivering material and efficient for students to learn it. Cobb's piece is a major component of that for me, as the majority of my work in statistics education has focused on simulation-based inference and how to leverage different technologies to best teach these core statistical concepts to students.”
As co-editor, Professor Clement will play a key role in shaping the journal’s direction, overseeing scholarly contributions, and supporting the journal’s mission to highlight innovative approaches at the intersection of technology and statistics education. “With the emergence of many other statistics education journals, TISE has seen its published output slow in recent years. I hope that with proper outreach to the broader statistics education community that we can keep this journal and the tradition started by George Cobb alive.”