L’aggiornamento professionale degli insegnanti di statistica : una proposta per la scuola secondaria di secondo grado in Toscana

Summary : This paper describes the initiative “Teaching Statistics : ideas and tools” a proposal for the professional training of upper secondary school teachers in Tuscany. Statistics is a key competence for the citizens of modern society, due to its central role in supporting critical reasoning. Mastering its tools is essential to understand quantitative dimension of reality, to activate informed decision processes and to assess the outcomes. To ensure everyone the opportunity to develop statistical reasoning, in Italy for many years now, Statistics has been included in school curricula and its role has been strengthened over years. In this scenario teachers have to face new challenges to develop students’ statistical reasoning. To meet teachers’ needs of professional development, the Department of Statistics, Computer Science, Applications of the University of Florence (DiSIA) and Istat, Italian National Institute of Statistics, territorial office for Tuscany, jointly organized a training course for in-service high school teachers. The proposal was designed to cover the need for a broad theoretical and conceptual basis and the opportunity to have learning tools and didactic materials to support teachers’ work with students. Collaboration between DiSIA and Istat in Tuscany allowed to realize a pilot initiative whose results can be used for future projects.