Our team member Jennifer Colby, a teacher librarian at Huron High School in Ann Arbor, put together an informative presentation called “What is Data Literacy: Getting our students from data to knowledge.” In it, she expresses the importance of data literacy in classroom learning and gives four salient reasons, quoted from her slides:
- To develop literacy skills
- To develop standardized test taking skills
- To address state and national standards
- To develop informed citizens
Her slides highlight examples of how to approach data, statistics, and visualizations. Data literacy applies to all content areas. Take a look at the infographics on Romeo and Juliet — they give plot insights through their visual representations of events.
In the big picture, data literacy helps students with “understanding,” “extracting,” and “presenting” data. With so much data in school and everyday life, these competencies are key.
Keep her points in mind to incorporate data literacy into your instruction.