Online Program

Engaging Students in Community-Based Learning Through Collaborative Data Analysis Events (309894)

Keywords: statistics and data science education, community-based learning

Community-based/service-learning is a High Impact Practice and has be shown to have positive outcomes both on student learning and community impact. At St. Catherine University (a women’s institution), we held two virtual community-engaged data events modeled after ASA’s Data Fest in which students from various disciplines collaboratively explored and made meaning of datasets related to boosting economic mobility from poverty and working for racial equity. Through a community partnership with Ramsey County (where St. Catherine is located), students were challenged to look for solutions for better economic policy to share with county staff who were applying for a grant to help boost upward mobility from poverty. In this poster, I will describe the two 9-hour “mini Data Fest” events we held, share lessons learned, and provide some examples of student findings from the data and their reactions to the events.