Project UPLIFT: Universal Portability of Learning Increased by Fun Teaching will offer college statistics teachers engaging classroom mini-lessons and resources consisting of fun items, spanning all main topics of introductory statistics, from the extensive, widely-visited CAUSEweb.org digital library. The fun items encompass many modalities, including cartoons, jokes, quotes, songs, poems, wordplay, and videos. UPLIFT will transform the undergraduate statistics classroom by putting fun items into well-indexed and annotated classroom-ready form with mini lesson plans for their use without requiring special talent - thus removing perceived barriers to use. UPLIFT materials will be assessed rigorously for their impact on student learning and student anxiety and attitudes towards the often-dreaded realm of introductory statistics. This will be done using a novel randomized controlled experiment and supporting interviews and observations of students.
UPLIFT will disseminate methods and results through virtual and paper publications, conference presentations, and both general and customized webinars. UPLIFT's impact will be broad -- the fun-based items are being tailored for, and tested in, diverse populations of students representative of the 800,000 students taking introductory statistics each year in the United States. Project UPLIFT collaborating institutions are Ohio State University, University of Texas at El Paso, and Georgia Perimeter College.
