MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — As the emerging field of data science becomes an everyday part of industry and the modern job market, associate professor and researcher Ryan “Seth” Jones from the College of Education is taking a lead in developing best practices and frameworks for getting K-12 students well-versed in the topic.

“This type of learning is important because making decision with data and data models is becoming more and more important in various jobs and for engaging in public discourse about a variety of topics,” Jones said. “Even though there are currently no ‘data science’ standards for teachers in Tennessee, there are still learning standards across math and science that ask teachers to engage students with data, evaluate claims made with data and generate claims with data….  That’s where we’re trying to help.” 

Jones works on this both in the classroom at MTSU and through multiple research projects on designing and studying learning environments that support children and adults to learn about data, modeling, probability, statistics and inference.

“I conduct this work in an interdisciplinary way,” said Jones, collaborating with the Data Science Institute, the Tennessee STEM Education Center, the Assessment, Learning and Student Success Ed.D. program, the Mathematics and Science Education Ph.D. program and scholars from across the country. “I’m seeking innovative approaches to learning across math and science classes so that students can learn to make use of data to better understand the world around them.”

The Ocoee, Tennessee, native, also landed a highly prized National Science Foundation Early CAREER grant in 2020 worth $700,000, which has helped fund most of his research team’s efforts in their production of published articles, trainings for dozens of teachers and thousands of students, and more.

“This has (also) resulted in teachers changing their lessons and some even using our work together to pursue National Board Certification,” said Jones, to name some of his work’s impacts. 

One of two mathematics and science education doctoral candidates on Jones’ research team, Fonya Scott, researches student assessment as part of his NSF grant “Integrated Data” project. 

“As a high school science teacher, I struggled to find resources to support student analysis of the data we collected in our investigations,” Scott said. “I often worked with mathematics teachers to better understand what students had been exposed to and how to help students connect the statistical practices they were introduced to in mathematics with the science inquiry skills I hoped to develop. As a researcher, I am excited about developing the tools that help students and teachers make these kinds of cross-disciplinary connections.”

Jones said Scott is already developing innovative assessment tools and strategies to support this interdisciplinary approach, and that both she and the other doctoral team member, Lori Klukowski, recently presented their work at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching International Conference in Denver, Colorado. 

“At these conferences, they engaged with scholars from around the world, including some of the top researchers in our field,” Jones said. “Their research and training at MTSU will help them to become competitive candidates for faculty positions at universities, research positions at research firms and education leaders.”

Scott hopes to become a professor and continue her research to support preservice math, science and agricultural science teachers and said the funding provided through Jones’ NSF grant helped make her work possible.

“We want to provide all of our doctoral candidates with this kind of support and experience to set them up for their future careers,” Jones said. “One of our recent program graduates, for example, who worked on my research team is now working as a research associate at the education nonprofit WestEd.” 

National data science education leadership

In addition, Jones, who first joined MTSU’s education faculty in 2016, was recently asked to take part in the Data Science Education K-12: Research to Practice Conference, also known as the DSE-K12, launch collective. The conference brought together 30 data science education stakeholders from across the country last month in Washington, D.C., for two days of collective brainstorming and strategizing about K-12 science education. 

“I enjoyed learning from scholars from different fields as we discussed ideas for the conference,” said Jones, who serves on a subcommittee to plan conference session formats that will continue to work together over the next year. “My participation will provide opportunities for MTSU to become better known among this community and for this research to be communicated to my colleagues at MTSU.”

Learn more about the opportunities at MTSU’s College of Education at https://mtsu.edu/education/. 

— Stephanie Wagner (Stephanie.Wagner@mtsu.edu)