Much has been written in the statistics and data science education literature about pedagogical tools and approaches to provide a practical computational foundation for students. However a common friction point for getting students (and faculty) started with computing is installation and setup. Circumventing the installation step early in the course by having students access R and RStudio in the cloud can minimize frustration and improve buy in. RStudio Cloud is a lightweight and easy to set up / use solution to this problem. In this webinar we will walk you through the steps of setting up your course on RStudio Cloud, highlighting the various functionalities for teachers and students. We will also discuss best practices and provide an opportunity for the audience to experience the setup first hand. Additionally, we highlight a suite of ready to use resources for teaching an introduction to data science and statistical thinking course using R.
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel is Professor of the Practice at Duke University and Developer Educator at RStudio. Mine’s work focuses on innovation in statistics and data science pedagogy, with an emphasis on computing, reproducible research, student-centered learning, and open-source education as well as pedagogical approaches for enhancing retention of women and under-represented minorities in STEM. Mine works on integrating computation into the undergraduate statistics curriculum, using reproducible research methodologies and analysis of real and complex datasets. Mine works on the OpenIntro project, whose mission is to make educational products that are free, transparent, and lower barriers to education. As part of this project she co-authored four open-source introductory statistics textbooks. She is also the creator and maintainer of datasciencebox.org and she teaches the popular Statistics with R MOOC on Coursera. Mine is a Fellow of the ASA and Elected Member of the ISI as well as the winner of the 2021 Robert V. Hogg Award for For Excellence in Teaching Introductory Statistics.
