Revolutions in teaching and learning statistics: A collection of reflections

In the second set of reflective writings (the first set appears in Chap. 13), another group of prominent statisticians and statistics educators considers the impact of recent and future developments on both the statistics curriculum and the ways in which it is taught and learned. The two connecting themes in this group of writings are the ubiquitous use of technology and the uses of data in decision making. All of these writings acknowledge, to a greater or lesser extent, the differing future needs of two groups. As citizens, today's students need to be educated to be critical consumers of data but do not need detailed knowledge of statistical techniques. The much smaller group who will go on to be professionally engaged in the production and analysis of data also need the ability to engage with more technical details. A challenge for statistics education, particularly at school level, is to provide a learning environment which is appropriate for both of these needs, since we do not know the future trajectories of our students.