Given her expertise in the arena of probability, it should come as no surprise
that Joy Jordan, associate professor of statistics, has only purchased a
lottery ticket once in her life, and that was on a whim for a $360 million
jackpot. Her scholarship focuses on methods of teaching and learning statistics
and carefully assessing those methods. She employs creative writing assignments
to assist students grappling with statistical concepts and, inspired by musician
Eminem in the movie Eight Mile, performs an end-of-term statistics “rap” to
provide a musical review of concepts covered during the term.
A member of
the faculty since 1999, Jordan co-wrote, with Associate Professor of Psychology
Beth Haines, the article “The
Role of Statistics Educators in the Quantitative Literacy Movement” for
the Journal of Statistics Education. Among other things, the article addresses
the difficulty students encounter when transferring knowledge from one disciplinary
context to another.
Jordan was presented the 2006 Waller Education Award by
the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistical Education,
the first professor from a liberal arts college to receive the award.
In July,
she delivered the address “A (Non-Random) Sample of Topics in Statistics
Education” at the Conference on Teaching Introductory Statistics at the
Medical College of Wisconsin, and in August she participated in the panel “Learning
from and Applying Statistics Education Research to Our Own Teaching” at
the Joint Statistical Meetings in Seattle.
A native of Mount Vernon, Iowa,
and a former standout prep volleyball player, Jordan was inducted into the
Iowa High
School Athletic Hall of Fame in November.
Mathematics majors Danielle Jordan ’07, left, and Stephanie Kliethermes ’07, right, are doing an independent study on multivariate statistical analysis with Professor Jordan.
