Rate My Professor Ann Watkins

Watkins' research and contributions center on statistics education, promoting active learning, data analysis through graphics, real-world data, statistical thinking, and viewing statistics as a laboratory science. Appointed to the ASA-NCTM Joint Committee on the Curriculum in Statistics and Probability in 1980, she contributed to the Quantitative Literacy Project, co-authoring Exploring Data (revised edition, 1995). She edited the College Mathematics Journal from 1989 to 1994, chaired the Advanced Placement Statistics Development Committee from 1997 to 1999, authoring its first Teacher’s Guide, and served as president of the Mathematical Association of America from 2001 to 2002. She co-founded the SIGMAA on Statistics Education in 2000, advocated for contributed paper sessions on statistics at MAA meetings starting in 1985, and participated in the ASA-MAA Joint Committee on Undergraduate Statistics, contributing to its 1992 report "Teaching Statistics." Key publications include textbooks Activity-Based Statistics (1996, second edition 2004), Statistics in Action: Understanding a World of Data (2004, second edition 2008 titled Statistics: From Data to Decision, 2011), co-authored with Richard Scheaffer, Mrudulla Gnanadesikan, and Jeffrey Witmer, and the article "Is Human Height Bimodal?" (2002) with Michael Schilling and William Watkins. Honors include election as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1999 for contributions to curriculum, pedagogy, and reform, and the United States Conference on Teaching Statistics Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.