Creating Better Teaching Tools Through Examining Teachers' Understanding of Data Representations

Social studies teachers regularly use digital tools to teach data literacy - the ability to understand, analyze and interpret data visualizations including charts, graphs, and timelines. These digital tools, such as websites for creating charts and graphs, aid in teaching data literacy as they allow students and teachers to visualize large numerical data sets that would be difficult to manipulate without the use of computational tools. However, the data visualization tools that are easily accessible to teachers are rarely built specifically for teaching and require methods for inputting or manipulating data with which teachers are unfamiliar. I propose that by examining how K-12 teachers understand data representations and building tools which scaffold that understanding, digital data visualization tools can be created that will be more usable by teachers and more likely to be adopted into classroom use.