Why I am going to ICOTS9 in Flagstaff, Arizona

I was a university academic for twenty years. One of the great perks of academia is the international conference. Thanks to the tax-payers of New Zealand I have visited Vancouver, Edinburgh, Melbourne (twice), San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, Salt Lake City and my favourite, Ljubljana. This is a very modest list compared with many of my colleagues, as I didn’t get full funding until the later years of my employ.
Academic conferences enable university researchers and teachers from all over the world to gather together and exchange ideas and contacts. They range from fun and interesting to mind-bogglingly boring. My first conference was IFORS in Vancouver in 1996, and I had a blast. It helped that my mentor, Hans Daellenbach, was also there, and I got to meet some of the big names in operations research. I have since attended two other IFORS conferences, and it is amazing how connected you can feel to people whom you meet only every few years. I always try to go to most sessions of the conference as I feel an obligation to the people who have paid to have me there. It is unethical to be paid to go to a conference, and then turn up only for a couple of sessions and the banquet. Sometimes sessions that I have only limited connection with can turn out to be interesting. I found I could always listen for the real world application that I could then include in my teaching. That would usually take up the first few minutes of the talk. Once the formulas appeared I would glaze over and go to my happy place. Having said that, I also think mental health breaks are important, and would take time out to reflect. I get more out of conferences if I leave my husband at home. The quiet time in my hotel room was also important for invigorating my teaching and research.
Most academic conferences focus on research, though they often have a teaching stream, which I frequent. ICOTS is different though as it is mostly about teaching, with a research stream! ICOTS stands for International Conference on Teaching Statistics, and runs every four years. I attended my first ICOTS in Slovenia in 2010. What surprised me was how many people there were from New Zealand! At the welcome reception I wandered around introducing myself to people and more often than not found they were also from New Zealand. How ironic to spend 40 hours getting to this amazing place and meet large numbers of fellow kiwis! (Named for the bird, not the fruit!). Ljubljana is a wonderful city, with fantastic architecture and lots of bike routes and geocaches. I made good use of my spare time. The conference itself was inspiring too. I attended just about every session, and gave a paper about making videos to teach statistics. I saw the dance of the p-value, and learned about statistics teaching in some African countries. I was impressed by the keynote by Gerd Gigerenzer, and went home and cancelled my mammogram. I put faces to some of the names in statistics education, though I was sad not to see George Cobb there, or Joan Garfield. What struck me was how nice everyone was. I loved my trip to some caves on the half-day excursion.
The point of this post is to encourage readers to go to ICOTS 9 in July this year. I admit I was a little disappointed when they announced the venue. I was hoping for somewhere a little more exotic. However the great benefit is that it is going to cost considerably less to get there than to many countries, and take less time. (For people from New Zealand and Australia, a trip of less than 24 hours is a bonus.) Now that I am no longer paid by a university to go to conferences, the cost is a big consideration. If necessary I will sell our caravan. Another benefit of the venue is it is very convenient for teachers from the US to attend. I am hoping to find out more about AP statistics, and other US statistics teaching.
I am currently reviewing an edited book published by Springer, Probabilistic Thinking. As I read each chapter I am increasingly excited that most of the authors will be attending ICOTS9. This is a great opportunity to discuss with them their ideas, and how to apply them in the classroom and in our resources. I am particularly interested in the latest research on how children and adults learn statistics and probability. This ICOTS I am doing a presentation about setting up a blog, Twitter and YouTube. In four years’ time I hope to be able to add to the research using what we have learned from students’ responses on our on-line resources.
I am a little apprehensive about the altitude and temperature, but have planned to arrive a few days early in Phoenix to acclimatise myself. In the interests of economy I will be staying at the university dorms, and just found out there is no air-conditioning in the bedrooms. My daughter-in-law from Utah tells me to buy a fan. I’m pretty happy about a trip to the Grand Canyon on the afternoon off.  The names of presenters and their abstracts are now available on the ICOTS9 website, so you can see what interesting times await.
I really hope I see a lot of you there – and not just New Zealanders.