Next steps in Statistics Education: Successful Service Teaching

Whilst great progress has been made in the field of statistics education, a remaining challenge is to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of service teaching in order to create successful end- users of statistics and to raise the profile of statistics within the wider community. The Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Lancaster University has a successful record of service teaching to other departments within the University. The opening of its new Postgraduate Statistics Centre in 2008, and the associated resources for teaching innovation, has enabled this high quality teaching to now expand, with more service courses currently being developed in collaboration with the recipient departments. We have undertaken an evaluation of statistics service teaching within the landmark Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University, which incorporates statistics users from the fields of Biology, Environmental Science and Geography. Collaborating with staff and students from those departments has enabled a thorough evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the current course offered, and has allowed us to make several recommendations for creating a new tailored and effective service course. We have demonstrated that the most efficient and effective approach to service teaching involves close collaboration between all departments involved in order to benefit both those teaching and those learning.