Professional Development¶
As we explore statistics, we will also be developing as professional statisticians. Specifically, we will focus on what it means to be a member of a professional environment and how to be intentional and reflective in our work.
Participating in the Course¶
Being part of a professional community has many parts; we generate and consume knowledge, we review and critique work, and we present to and learn from each other. The edge of what we know is constantly being pushed further and further as we discover new ideas, unearth new techniques, and ask new questions. At times, we are programmers, writers, and gardeners, and then at other times, we serve as reviewers, mentors, and learners. The constancy is our willingness to be present and active within our professional community. With this in mind, in this course, your intentional participation is expected.
Participation can take many forms, including but not limited to: attending class meetings, being active on our course slack, participating in discussion in class, offering ideas and questions in class or on slack. As a community our class will generate a list on our google drive of what we believe are ways to engage and participate in our course.
Note
Our class’s definition for participation can be found here
Adding to this list one way that you are called to participate in this course. If you find yourself unwilling or resistant to add to this list, examine this. What is holding you back? What would help propel you to action?
Preparing for Class¶
Participating our course will require more than being physically present; it is being prepared to engage with the topics, concepts, and activities of the day. This means having completed the reading, and any other pre-class activities for the day. Completion in this context means giving yourself the time and space to finish the most recent reading (asking questions on slack as you have them), to formulate half-formed questions and comments about the readings, and to try, fail, and try again on the group problems. In this way, completion is more about expanding our ideas (by coming up with questions and comments) about machine learning, than it is about perfectly finishing all the things. This kind of preparation means:
Blocking time in your daily work life for this course
Noting and sharing each question you have
Reading with a pen and highlighter in your hand
Taking frequent notes on readings, discussions, and labs
Working on pieces of the group problems and reviewing what your group discussed
Gathering the fragments of answers to the questions that you and others have posed
Attending class¶
We are still in the midst of a global pandemic. In keeping with the Guidelines laid out in Smith’s Culture of Care, if you are ill and/or have any COVID symptoms, please do not come to in-person class. Instead, please log in on zoom. The link can be found on our Moodle site and our slack space.
You do not need to email me to ask permission to come to class over zoom or in person. However, if you are not able to be in-person for 3 consecutive meetings, then we need to check in.
Similarly, do not come to student hours nor appointments if you are ill and/or have any COVID symptoms. There will be a zoom link for student hours and a zoom link can be provided for any in-person appointment.
Warning
Do NOT come to in-person class or student hours, if you are ill and/or have any COVID symptoms.
Failure to respect this policy will result in an email to both the class dean and your advisor.
Intentional and Reflective Work¶
A project involving statistical procedures is rarely a straightforward pursuit with a clear path from beginning to end. I have found the most success when I engage a process of constantly reflecting on where I am in a project compared to where I began and then intentionally determining my next step based on those assessments. In this class, we will reflect frequently. First we will mark the beginning and the end of the semester with a general check-in on where we are in our educational journeys. Throughout the course, you will reflect on what you learned in each lab and will have space to ask questions that are still lingering for you.
Writing¶
This course focuses on statistics and while it might be tempting to assume that “statistics” means “complicated and inaccessible writing”, this is not true for our course. For each assignment, you will be asked to explain your process, detail how the various pieces interact, and illuminate any potential weaknesses. This is excellent training for the ‘real world’ where you will have managers, users, and customers with varying levels of technical expertise.
In your assignments, I expect that you treat your readers as colleagues who have your respect and who you are genuinely interested in sharing your ideas with. This means that you may need to edit your responses or rewrite a solution to a problem for additional clarity. If you find yourself writing “the thing” or “you know what I mean,” I would recommend taking that as a sign that your assignment needs additional editing. If you have any questions about writing for statistics or more general, you are always welcome to reach out to me.
Writing Enriched Curriculum¶
The project will also scaffold explicit development of writing skills that SDS has laid out in our department’s newly adopted writing plan. Specifically, our course will focus on three of the listed writing goals:
Writing Goal 2 - Engage in a writing process that includes brainstorming, outlining, initial drafting, peer review, editing, and revising;
Writing Goal 4 - Prioritize the important parts of the process and/or project to communicate
Writing Goal 5 - Clearly communicating the research question and how analysis will support the question in the introduction.
Jacobson Center for Writing, Teaching & Learning¶
Smith has an additional resource for writing support: the Jacobson Center for Writing, Teaching & Learning make an appointment to take your work to the Jacobson Center on their website. In particular, you may choose to bring your work to Peer Writing Tutors Elisabeth Nesmith or Elina Gordon-Halpern, both SDS majors who tutor for the Jacobson Center. Contact Sara Eddy (seddy@smith.edu) for more information about their schedules or how to make an appointment.
The above language about the Jacobson Center was adapted from language from Sara Eddy. Used with permission