Georgia Perimeter College’s Dr. John Weber, who uses songs to make his statistics classes fun and the lessons stick, now has secured a grant to expand the technique.

The $54,698 two-year National Science Foundation grant funds the imaginative program he helped develop for an introductory statistics course called SMILES: Student-Made Interactive Learning with Educational Songs. It is a collaborative research grant award with partner schools Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas at El Paso. 

Weber uses interactive songs, whereby students fill in key blanks in an online song focusing on an important introductory statistics learning objective. These songs challenge students to construct examples or context, foster statistical literacy and reasoning skills and can reduce statistics anxiety and achieve learning gains.