My main area of interest is Statistics Education. How can we become better teachers of statistics? What difficulties do students have when it comes to learning statistics, and how can we create a classroom environment that is most conducive to learning? I am particularly interested in ways in which active learning can be brought into the statistics classroom, both in a traditional setting and within an online environment. I recently co-chaired a committee through the American Statistical Association (ASA) that was tasked with updating the landmark 2005 report “Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE).” These guidelines suggest that teachers of introductory courses in statistics should attempt to (1) Teach statistical thinking, (2) Focus on conceptual understanding, (3) Integrate real data with a context and a purpose, (4) Foster active learning, (5) Use technology to explore concepts and analyze data, and (6) Use assessments to improve and evaluate student learning. My own work focuses on ways in which these GAISE recommendations can be implemented in different types of classrooms. 

Michelle Everson joined the statistics faculty in 2014. She currently teaches and coordinates STAT 1350 (Elementary Statistics). Prior to this, from 2002 until 2014, she was a member of the faculty of the Statistics Education graduate program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota. She received an Outstanding Teaching award from the University of Minnesota in 2009, and in 2011, she received the American Statistical Association (ASA) Waller Education Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. From 2013 until 2015, she was the Editor of the Journal of Statistics Education.