Enhancing Data Science Teaching Capacity

Data science is a growing field, however the infrastructure does not exist to increase teaching capacity in response to this need. This issue is evident at El Camino College, where only two full-time faculty teach the college’s data science course. This program aims to create a critical mass of faculty who create experiences and teach data science courses. This program will be implemented over three years in conjunction with UC Berkeley, its data science modules team, and ECC’s professional development team. Informed by research on motivation, teacher professional development, and communities of practice, this project incorporates two types of professional development for faculty with different levels of data science expertise. The long-term goal is that by developing faculty capabilities, students will have multiple pathways to encounter and learn data science. The evaluation plan will assess the program’s impact on students, instruction, faculty skills and knowledge, and the faculty satisfaction in development activities. The successful implementation of this program will provide other community colleges with a working model for building a Data Science teaching infrastructure.