Advancing Data Science Education in K-12: Foundations, Research, and Innovations

by Victor R. Lee

Overview

Advancing Data Science Education in K-12 offers a highly accessible, research-based treatment of the foundations of data science education and its increasingly vital role in K-12 instructional content.

As federal education initiatives and developers of technology-enriched curricula attempt to incorporate the study of data science—the generation, capture, and computational analysis of data at large scale—into schooling, a new slate of skills, literacies, and approaches is needed to ensure an informed, effective, and unproblematic deployment for young learners. Friendly to novices and experts alike, this book provides an authoritative synthesis of the most important research and theory behind data science education, its implementation into K-12 curricula, and clarity into the distinctions between data literacy and data science. Learning with and about data hold equal and interdependent importance across these chapters, conveying the variety of issues, situations, and decision-making integral to a well-rounded, critically minded perspective on data science education.

Students and faculty in teaching, leadership, curriculum development, and educational technology programs will come away with essential insights into the breadth of our current and future engagements with data; the real-world opportunities and challenges data holds when taught in conjunction with other subject matter in formal schooling; and the nature of data as a human and societal construct that demands new competencies of today’s learners.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032472546
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/24/2025
Pages:	166
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Victor R. Lee is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, USA. His previous books are Reconceptualizing Libraries: Perspectives from the Information and Learning Sciences and Learning Technologies and the Body: Integration and Implementation in Formal and Informal Learning Environments. He received his PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University and holds bachelor’s degrees in Cognitive Science and Mathematics from the University of California San Diego.

Table of Contents

1. Data Everywhere  2. Data Literacy, Data Science, and Terms that Trip Us Up  3. Humans Thinking About Data  4. Teaching Data Science in Schools  5. Learning Data Science Outside of Schools  6. Expansive Views for Data Science Education  7. Onward - A Data Science Education Research Ecosystem

Editorial Reviews

In Advancing Data Science Education in K-12, Victor Lee accomplishes a rare feat: he reviews and reinvents the nascent field of Data Science Education with clarity, precision, and fantastic writing. Easy to read but conceptually rich and rigorous, the book redefines the language we use to talk about data science and data literacy in ways that will be consequential for years to come in academia and schools. Lee’s book is the fundamental guide for educators, researchers, and policymakers in exploring the field, understanding its potential, and determining how to bring it to schools. In a world'still struggling to make sense of the impact of new technologies in education, Victor offers us hope that future generations will be better prepared for a seemingly inevitable data-driven future.”
/—Paulo Blikstein, Associate Professor in the Teachers College and Affiliate Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department and Data Science Institute at Columbia University, USA

“Advancing Data Science Education in K-12 offers a unique perspective on data science education from a scholar who has both witnessed and led the development of this emerging discipline. Its breadth and rigor are complimented by Victor Lee's personal stories and observations. It promises to be a definitive text for years to come for researchers and others interested in data science education.”
/—Joshua Rosenberg, Associate Professor of STEM Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, and co-author of Data Science in Education Using R

“This work provides a truly unique perspective, combining Lee's deeply informed experience as a researcher with his incisive acumen for observing and distilling sociopolitical trends in education. Drawing upon both in equal measure, Lee paints an expansive view of the landscape and history of data science education, then culminates the work with a series of provocative punchlines that reveal important new strands of inquiry and illuminate the future of this rapidly growing field. Highly accessible yet packed with nuggets of wisdom, Advancing Data Science Education in K-12 stands out as that most rare of resources: an essential, go-to primer for those new to the field, and a well of fresh insights and inspiring calls to action for data science educators and researchers, both veteran and new alike.”
/—Chad Dorsey, President and CEO of The Concord Consortium

“It is a time of rapid curricular change as educators and policymakers grapple with how to deal with a data-rich and AI-mediated future. Advancing Data Science Education is an accessible yet extensive introduction to what researchers know—and, equally important, what we don’t yet know—about what it means for youth to think and learn with data. The book is rich in examples of the many ways data science has been taken up in classrooms and other educational spaces. It points to exciting open questions that will require deep collaboration between educators, researchers, and domain experts to address. Perhaps most importantly, it proposes new language that can lend traction and specificity to ongoing conversations and debates in the field. I recommend this book for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of current issues and questions around Data Literacy and Data Science Education.”
/—Michelle Hoda Wilkerson, Associate Professor in the Berkeley School of Education at University of California–Berkeley, USA, and Co-Editor of Situating Data Science

“In this tour-de-force, Victor Lee demonstrates substantial intellectual courage by taking on the field of data science education while it is in a constant state of change. He begins Advancing Data Science Education in K-12 by questioning whether ‘data’ is singular or plural and quickly convinces the reader that such attention to detail about words can yield important insights. His discussion of the distinction between ‘data literacy’ and ‘data science’ is particularly illuminating, as he offers multiple perspectives that reveal important subtleties not often made clear in print. Throughout, Lee’s style is accessible and slyly humorous, guiding the reader through both high-level conceptual discussions and specific examples with equal ease. From readers who are just beginning to learn about data science education to those with substantial knowledge who want a fresh perspective, this is a valuable read.”
/—Andee Rubin, Principal Scientist at TERC

“The exploding growth in data, the rise of data science, and the need for a coherent way to teach students how to make sense of the world they will inhabit are the core motivations for Victor Lee’s provocative, informative, and accessible Advancing Data Science Education in K-12. We are at a key inflection point in the development of K-12 Data Science Education, with the initial hype about how data will neatly solve long-standing issues replaced by a more realistic sense of how data can be used (or misused). Lee’s thoughtful call for a coherent vision for the field will be extremely valuable for educators, researchers, schools, and policymakers, as well as those interested in ways that data science can transform our educational systems.”
/—Nicholas J. Horton, Beitzel Professor of Technology and Society (Statistics and Data Science) at Amherst College, USA, and previous Editor of the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education

From the Publisher