Using Big-Data and Modeling Real-World Phenomena in Statistics Education

Nowadays, the need to pay attention to teaching statistics at all levels from elementary school to university has become more apparent. One of the goals of the various educational systems, which is reflected in their upstream documents, is to have citizens who are equipped with statistical literacy. In this regard, many statistical organizations and institutions have mentioned statistics education as one of their special goals and missions. School math textbooks in Iran also have sections devoted to discussions of statistics and probability. An examination of the role of statistics in Iran school Mathematics textbooks shows that there is good progress in including statistics and probability concepts in textbooks, but it is still far from the ideal. In the present article, after a brief discussion on the necessity of paying attention to statistics education in the school mathematics curriculum, the historical course of presenting statistics education will be reviewed. Then, the challenges in introducing the topics of teaching statistics and probability in the school mathematics curriculum are illustrated, and in the end, two new approaches (attention to big-data, use of new technologies in stimulating and modeling real-world phenomena) will be introduced in more detail and with examples.