Partnership with New York Times Learning Network Enters Third Year

This week, the ASA celebrates its third year of partnership with the New York Times Learning Network on the popular “What’s Going On in This Graph?“ feature, a program that helps teachers lead class discussions about graphs appearing in The New York Times.

The discussions engage students in grades 7–12 in activities and questions designed to improve their understanding and critical interpretation of visual displays of information in real life. Launched in the fall of 2017 as a monthly feature, “What’s Going On in This Graph” (WGOITG) expanded to providing weekly content last year.

Throughout the 2019–2020 academic year, a new graph and related content will be released every Thursday afternoon. Students and teachers can participate in a live, online discussion about the week’s WGOITG on Wednesdays between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET. Each week, the previous WGOITG will be updated with a “reveal” that shares answers to questions posed in the activities, highlights from the discussion, related statistical concepts, and helpful vocabulary.

Sharon Hessney, WGOITG leader at the ASA, points out that WGOITG imparts many benefits to teachers. It is provided completely free of charge and designed to be accessible to students aged 12 and up, regardless of their mathematical background. The content and activities are well suited for use in not only statistics and mathematics classrooms, but science and humanities as well. And the time requirements are flexible, allowing for use as either at-home assignments or in-class discussions.

Archived WGOITGs, indexed by topic and graph type, are freely available online. Teachers can also view a New York Times Learning Network webinar—featuring Sharon Hessney and Dan Meyer from Desmos, as well as teachers and students—with pointers for using WGOITG in the classroom. Further information can also be found in a Statistics Teacher article and ThisIsStatistics blog post.

To stay up-to-date and share the fabulous WGOITG content with your teacher, student, and parent networks, follow #NYTGraphChat on social media.

New WGOITG releases scheduled for the 2019–2020 academic year include the following:

  • September 11, 18, and 25
  • October 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30
  • November 6, 13, and 20
  • December 4 and 11
  • January 8, 15, 22, and 29
  • February 5, 12, and 26
  • March 4, 11, 18, and 25
  • April 1 and 8