Rosewood
New Ways of Training Data-Savvy Workforce: The SOLSTICE Approach (304831)
*Elena N Naumova, Tufts UniversityKeywords: training, leadership, graduate education, data science
Training in data-rich disciplines in graduate programs often involve students with varying levels of skill, training, attitudes, and experience. While project-based teaching has been recognized as an effective tool, developing a curriculum for statistics-related courses suitable for students specializing in non-statistical fields, is challenging due to high requirements for faculty development, cultural resistance to change, and institution- and unit-level factors. To address these gaps, we introduced a transformative learning approach to graduate education by involving students in solution-oriented, student-initiated, computationally-enriched (SOLSTICE) training. We implemented this program in the graduate program of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, which is inherently multidisciplinary, to capitalize on data-rich disciplines related to the environment, agriculture, climate, demography, natural resources, etc. The first rounds of implementation demonstrate that women and members of underrepresented groups benefit the most from the SOLSTICE approach as it offers a tailored training environment to emphasize effective communication and leadership potentials.