Dana Center design principles: growth mindset

eCOTS 2022 Workshop

Nicholas J. Horton and Benjamin S. Baumer

May 19, 2022

Dana Center Data Science Design Principle Framework

The framework is copyright 2021 The Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin.
The Dana Center has granted educators a nonexclusive license to reproduce and share copies of this publication to advance this work.

Design Principle: growth mindset

The course supports students in developing the tenacity, persistence, and perseverance necessary for learning data science, for using mathematics and statistics to tackle authentic problems, and for being successful in post-high school endeavors.

Student perspectives

Make sense of data explorations by drawing on and making connections with their prior understanding and ideas.
Persevere in solving problems and realize that it is acceptable to say, “I don’t know what to do next,” but that it is not acceptable to give up.
Understand that productive struggle is valuable for brain growth and that times of struggle should be valued.
Identify productive struggle and have coping mechanisms for destructive struggle.

Student perspectives (cont.)

Reflect on mistakes and misconceptions to improve their mathematical understanding and data literacy.
Seek help from different sources to move forward in their investigations, or be willing to start from a different perspective.
Compassionately help one another by sharing strategies and solution paths rather than simply giving answers.
Develop/strengthen a growth mindset to continue to apply in mathematics, data science, and other areas of their post-high school life.

Faculty perspectives

Provide information about and model the importance of having a growth mindset.
Facilitate discussions on the value of mistakes, misconceptions, and struggles.
Demonstrate a growth mindset and value mistakes in their own experience with students.
Provide students with low-stakes opportunities where they can make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.

Faculty perspectives (cont.)

Give students time to struggle with tasks and ask questions that scaffold students’ thinking without stepping in to do the work for them.
Provide regular opportunities for students to self-monitor, evaluate, and reflect on their learning, both individually and with their peers.
Encourage students to work beyond their comfort zone.

Small group discussion

Please take four minutes in groups to briefly discuss how you have incorporated Growth Mindset into your courses.

The group leader (person whose last name comes first in the alphabet) is asked to share one or two examples that arose in the discussion which resonated for the group.

How to operationalize?

Case study 1: reprexes

Thanks to Julia Evans!

Case study 1: reprexes

Minimally reproducible examples

Example reprex (communicating with a student): data wrangling

Student question: How do I convert a variable with different numeric codes to a categorical variable that combines some of the groups?

Example reprex: data wrangling

Possible response by instructor, (see reprex.R)

reprex::reprex({
  suppressWarnings(library(tidyverse))
  x <- c(3, 2, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6)
  ds <- tibble(x) %>%
    mutate(x_grp = 
      case_when(
        x %in% c(1, 2, 3) ~ "sustainable",
        x == 4            ~ "experimental",
        x %in% c(5, 6) ~ "fossil fuel"
      )
    )
  ds
})

Case study 2: teaching Shiny

dynamic visualization is important
dynamic visualization is fun
reactive programming is hard
the “journey is the reward”

Case study 2: teaching Shiny on day 1

start very simple in day 1:
- demonstrate built in example within RStudio (shiny01) with single reactive input and single reactive output
- have students (in groups) change one thing about this app

Case study 2: teaching Shiny on day 2

pre-reading for day 2: basic background/overview of Shiny (https://shiny.rstudio.com)
day 2: have students explore the MacLeish app (shiny02) then (in groups) add one additional bell or whistle

Case study 2: teaching Shiny on day 3

day 3: explore events and event programming in class (shiny03)
culminating experience: group project to build a Roadless USA app

Some caveats and notes

our experience is that the importance of communicating via reprexes is hard for students to understand
even harder is reactive programming: it is extremely challenging to debug
importance of keeping perspective and other aspects of growth mindset