Where do I teach?

I am a lecturer in the Department of Statistics and Population Studies (SPS) at UWC.

Our department’s legacy started in 1975 when statistics formed part of the Mathematics Department with only two members of staff teaching Mathematical Statistics I, which started in second year and Mathematical Statistics II, in the third year. These courses had theoretical and handwritten practical components as we did not have computers at that time. We also did not offer any postgraduate degrees (first member of staff completed her PhD in 1979) in the early days as it was a struggle to get students to third year level and those who graduated with statistics as one of their major subjects would generally take up employment in the private or public sector.

Over the years many Professors joined the department which later expanded to include population studies. We are now just over 20 staff members offering the undergraduate degree and post-graduate programmes in Statistics and Population Studies attracting students from all over Africa. The department also provides undergraduate service courses to different departments and faculties across the university. Our department is very vibrant and we pride ourselves in doing what we do with excellence.

In 2016 I was part of an interdisciplinary (Science and Commerce) team who has developed modules for the newly offered post graduate diploma in Data Science. I have also been serving, as a representative for the department, on the universities Teaching and Learning committee since 2015.

What

do i

teach?

In March 2018 I was part of the team at UWC Statistics and Population Studies Department who collaborated with the Centre for Business, Mathematics and Informatics (BMI) at Northwest University (NWU) that launched a Master’s programme in Statistical Science with specialization in Data Science (https://www.uwc.ac.za/News/Pages/New-Data-Science-Programme-Develops-Future-Data-Masters-.aspx). I facilitate the Retail Credit Risk Module (view brochure).

where I teach

This section highlights how:

I use technology-enhanced teaching and learning strategies
I consider, how the attainment of graduate attributes may influence teaching and learning
I align and select appropriate assessment activities, adopt strategies for quality assurance, including student evaluation.
I use a scholarship of teaching and learning approach to teaching.
I promote discipline-specific reading and writing literacy.

I teach distribution theory and business statistics (view STA211, view BUS132). STA211 is a second year undergraduate course offered to students in the faculties of Science and Economic and Management Science (EMS). The STA211 team consists of me the course coordinator and lecturer and one practical demonstrator. In this semester course students are taught the fundamentals of random variables and their distributions and their role in inference and more broadly, research. The students also analyse data using a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) and Excel. I taught this course in the first semester of 2016 and 2017.

BUS132 is a first year undergraduate introductory statistics course offered to students registered in the EMS faculty. I am currently a lecturer (coordinator and lecturer in the second semester of 2014 and 2015, lecturer in the second semester of 2016 and 2017) in the BUS132 team which comprises of 4 lecturers and the course coordinator. In this course students are taught to analyse data (manually and using Ms Excel on the computer) in so transforming it into information for decision making. They also learn a very important statistical methodology, called regression analysis which will enable them to estimate the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables. They can apply this methodology in business, for example using a company’s historical sales and profits to make financial forecasts about the company’s profits. At the completion of the course students should be able to recognise the importance of statistics in both private and public sectors. I also taught STA125, an Introductory Statistics, a undergraduate first year course in 2016 (Term 4) and the Part Time Business Statistics course (BUS131) in 2015 (Term 2).

From 18 to 20 March 2015 I attended an induction workshop on teaching and learning, where I started the process of realigning the UWC graduate attributes within the BUS 132 course (view Graduate Attributes). I applied these changes when I taught the BUS132 course in second semester 2015. After I taught the STA211 in June 2016, I met with senior colleagues to expand the course content and practical work done (in Excel and SAS), and have implemented the changes in 2017 (view STA211 Course Changes). The objective of these course changes was to increase the students level of literacy in Distribution Theory.

In 2015 I also taught a short course (to part time students) in Management and Communicating Information (view PUA613). This course is one of the block week subjects (taught for one week of the year) for the 1 year Advanced Diploma in Public Administration offered by the School of Government at UWC. The PUA613 team comprises of a course coordinator employed by the School of Government and one lecturer (me). The course is designed to teach the basic procedures leading to the production of research–based information relevant to policy making in economic and social development. The course emphasizes an appreciation for the role of quantitative information in the decision making. At the end of the module, the student will have knowledge of the statistical tools and techniques they can use (manually or in MS Excel) to inform their decision making in so giving them a competitive advantage in the work place.

The new PG Diploma in Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (view PG Dip) started on 3 February 2017. The SPS department offered two of the six courses (Statistics and Visualisation as well as Introduction to Data Mining) in the first and second semester. Two departments in the EMS faculty will be offering the other four courses and I am one of two lecturers teaching the Statistics and Visualisation (view BIA713) course. I decided to take up the challenge of teaching at a postgraduate level and have found that it improved my level of literacy in Statistics and it also reinforced my confidence when teaching the undergraduate modules.

what i teach

Who

do i

teach?

This section highlights how:

I engage with student learning needs
I consider how the attainment of graduate attributes may influence teaching and learning
I align and select appropriate assessment activities

The first class I taught was the BUS132 group in the second semester of 2014. In 2015 I taught two groups of students, a large full time first year BUS132 group on the UWC campus in Cape Town and a more mature and experienced part time advanced diploma class who consisted mainly of government officials and political activists of the South African Communist Party (SACP). The advanced diploma class was taught both on campus in Cape Town and at the SACP offices in Johannesburg. In 2016 I had a fairly sized group of second year statistics (STA211) students in the first semester and a large group first year business statistics students in the second semester. This year I have over 100 full time undergraduate students registered for STA211 and approximately 30 PG students consisting mostly of adults in full time employment across various industries.

Whether fresh out of school or mature with life and work experience, students signing up for my statistics courses, generally enter with the expectation ‘not to understand’ the course content. Their preconceived ideas about statistics drives their basic “goal” or ‘hope’ to at least just learn to pass. This information they freely communicate when I ask them what their expectations are. Based on my observation and interaction with the students it is evident that they are diverse with diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and learning styles. Some students advise me that they will self-study and request that I do mainly exercises in class where other students request that I explain the mathematical and statistical logic and reasoning of concepts in class. I try my best to keep the balance between theory and practical during face to face lecture sessions. Students freely share with me if they are studying using a bursary or working part time to pay fees. I find that some of them are dedicated and committed to learn and work hard because of it. The majority of my students have a weak mathematical background (evident when I mark their test and exam scripts) and this generally poses as a challenge for them and me. In view of this observation I now add lists of the required mathematical concepts that they need to be familiar with (as it underpins the statistical content I teach) at beginning of each of my PowerPoint slides. It has also become important to me that I build good relationships with the lecturers in the Mathematics Department as I would like to collaborate with them to try and come up with ways to further address these challenges.

The Table below reflects the summary statistics of the modules I have taught since 2014.

In 2016, the 135 registered STA211 students were highest intake since inception of this course.