EdStats.Org is <<UNDER CONSTRUCTION>>. The site should be fully functional by July, 2012. "Fully functional" means that a school data team with no data analytic experience can begin analyzing their own data in the first week, Unit 1, and continue progressing one unit per week through the Intermediate Semester. In the meantime, feel free to check out anything and everything.

Watch the following 5-minute video at your own risk!

It annoys me to death, but I won't have time to do better until the summer.

• Step 1: Watch the Unit 1 lecture, here.  The Unit 1 lecture is the longest of all, clocking in at 211 minutes.  (The Unit 2 lecture is more typical at 97 minutes.)  I never said that this course would be easy!  Good teachers say to their students, "This is easy; You can do it."  The best teachers say to their students, "This is hard; You can do it."  I'm working to be the best teacher I can be, as are you.  This is hard; You can do it.

• Step 2: Choose a data set.

  1. Least difficult: Choose to analyze provided data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, here.

  2. Most difficult, but most valuable: Choose to analyze your own school’s data.

• Step 3: Download, install and use free, open-source R and Rcmdr to analyze your data set.

  1. Learn how to download and install R and Rcmdr, here.

  2. Learn how to open your data set in R and Rcmdr, here.

  3. Learn how to clean and recode your data set, here, if you are analyzing your own data.

  4. Learn how to analyze your data set using R and Rcmdr, here.

Note that you do not have to take the entire four-semester course to learn a heck of a lot. The first semester alone is a complete introduction to educational data analysis. The first two units alone are a complete introduction to exploratory data analysis.

• EdStats.Org is a free graduate-level online course in educational data analysis. The first two semesters (Introductory and Intermediate) of the four-semester course are currently available.
• Analyze your school’s quantitative data in-house with a data team of teachers that your faculty can trust, and save costly consulting fees by outsourcing only as needed.
• Master practical data analytic skills (i.e., postholes), and test your mastery with posthole assessments.
• Learn by doing. Use your school’s data for the assignments (i.e., memos) so that you can build presentations for your faculty/committee/community while you take the course.
• This course has no math prerequisites outside of 8^th/9^th grade algebra, which we will review as needed.
• The course focuses on verbal and graphical representations of statistical concepts more than mathematical representations, but the math is available in the appendices.
• In the future, I will be developing two more semesters (Advanced and Measurement ), I will be adding modules for statistical computing and PowerPoint presentations, and I will be improving the current semesters. Plans include:
  • A compete conversion, with supporting modules, to the best statistical package in the world, R, which happens to be free.
  • Modular lessons on making nifty PowerPoint presentations.
  • Better pedagogy, generally sharpening lectures and clearly demarcating critical slides.
• For individualized help with establishing a data team, building a school data set, getting feedback on your memos, or presenting your data analytic findings for the sake of improved teaching and learning, DataTeamConsulting.Com can help.

EdStats.Org is the public-service companion site of the fee-for-service site, DataTeamConsulting.Com. Both sites have the same mission: Foster teacher-driven decision making. EdStats.Org is for everything scalable. DataTeamConsulting.Com  is for everything confidential and individualized. I promise to never hold anything back from EdStats.Org as a way to drum up business for DataTeamConsulting.Com.  I am more than happy to put myself out of business and return to teaching 9th grade English language arts. Of course, I would join my school's data team!

By the way, my name is Sean. You can find out more about me on the Contact page.

I dedicate this course to my mother, who is a high school math teacher, and to my father, whose name is Ed. Thank you for all the gifts that you have given me. May I share them well.