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Winning them over to the data side – An ARF workshop on Data lit and viz

September 8, 2022 by Paulina Przystupa

Text on a  white background with two rhombuses, the one on the left in dark blue and the one on the right in light blue next to one another to make a book like image. The First line text reads Open Context, the next reads a service of the Alexandria Archive institute the next, those are both in black letters, the title beneath htat reads Data Literacy and Data visualization in light blue matching the light blue in the book image, the words below that are Paulina F. Przystupa, MA (@punuckish) ciszka@opencontext.org 9 August 2022 9am-12pm

Following on the heels of Eric’s talk, I (Paulina) got to guest lecture with the super cool students of the Archaeological Research Facility (ARF) Peralta Hacienda Historical Park field school. I approached my topic like a workshop because the Field Director (the awesome Dr. Meredith Reifschneider) allotted me three hours to talk about Data Literacy (Data Lit) and Data Visualization (Data Viz).

Few people can talk (or listen) for three hours straight, so I broke the workshop into three parts with copious breaks. Stretching, socializing, and snacking keep people engaged. As does providing activities that support different kinds of learning. So during my lecture combined some get up and move around activities, some analytical activities, some visual activities, and some writing activities into one multi-hour session.

Although we had lots of breaks, I created continuity by keeping a rotating notes sheet active throughout the class. On that, I encouraged students to answer specific questions I had for them during the lecture. Then, after they answered each question, I had them pass down the notes to another student. That way, by the end, everyone had contributed something to everyone else’s notes sheet (including me!).

An image of an old classroom with wood paneling and a glass arch in the background near the sceiling. In the foreground is a carboard box and the back of the head of a person with dark hair looking awy while sitting in a chair. In the middle ground is a white woman with brown ihair in a hellow shirt and jeans sitting in an office chair at a table with a white mask looking to the right of hte fraime. Behind her is a black lamp. On the right hand of the image is a person in a black tshirt with yellow writing holding up a piece of whtie paper. The person has dark hair up in a bun and a white mask on. Behind them is another deks with drawers. On the wall between the two people is a slide with the words. The slide is as follows "Text on a white background with two rhombuses, the one on the left in dark blue and the one on the right in light blue next to one another to make a book like image. The First line text reads Open Context, the next reads a service of the Alexandria Archive institute the next, those are both in black letters, the title beneath htat reads Data Literacy and Data visualization in light blue matching the light blue in the book image, the words below that are Paulina F. Przystupa, MA (@punuckish) ciszka@opencontext.org 9 August 2022 9am-12pm". There is a radiator also visible in the background

Me (Paulina) explaining what the white pieces of paper are for

My favorite piece of that collaborative work was the inclusion of everyone’s response to our narrative activity. I got a delightful piece of meta-narrative that will always remind me of getting to hang out and work with the ARF field school students.

Beyond that, we covered the basics of data lit, what it is and how we learn to be data literate. We also looked at some pros and cons of different kinds of data visualizations with a focus on the visual dynamics that humans are good at (like comparing straight lines). And more than anything, I encouraged them to play with their data.

After spending so many hours excavating and cataloging, it was time for them to turn those data into a narrative of some kind. This meant that they needed to be able to summarize the information about their observations in some way. We did this by walking through Cow-culating your data with spreadsheets and R – Part I Spreadsheets in real time, adapting it on the fly. 

An image in an old classroom with wooden paneling on the walls and a white upper part with glass arches above windows on the right and center side. There is a blurry slide presentation in the upper center portion of hte image. On either side of a wooden shelf divider are students sitting at high tables in various states of attention some typing on laptops and other slooking in different directions. There are two people at the front of the classroom. One in dark hair has their mask pulled down and is part way through speaking on the right side of the image. On the left a person in yellow has their white mask on.

Me responding to a student’s question while clutching my own cup of caffeine during the workshop

They even got to watch me make mistakes when leading them (I hadn’t worked in google sheets for a while). This was really cool because that’s part of data literacy too! Just like how we don’t read everything correctly every time (or even look at all the words), data literacy is about being comfortable making mistakes and adapting to new situations. Or being able, like some of the students, to not quite know what is wrong but identify that something is “off” about what they produced. 

Like all literacies, archaeological data literacy is about practice more than just “knowing” how to do it. And it was great to introduce these students to some of the ways we can all practice these skills on our own or collaboratively.

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Category News| Open Educational Resources| Projects Tags archaeology| data literacy| public engagement| teaching| tutorial

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