Teaching statistics in a brave new world

Assistant Professor Adam Kashlak is focused on engaging students remotely in the upcoming academic year.

Katie Willis - 26 June 2020

When it comes to teaching statistics, Adam Kashlak is focused on fostering student engagement through technology—through the move to remote teaching in Winter 2020 and beyond.

“My plan is to provide both live lectures and pre-recorded video, so that I can cover main concepts and propose discussion questions in the pre-recorded video and then spend more time discussing the details live with students able to ask questions and participate in discussions,” explained Kashlak, who is an assistant professor in the University of Alberta’s Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. “I hope to encourage students to turn their mics on in the fall. I also plan to continue using such video tools once we return to campus to augment in-person lectures.” 

His favourite tools for remote teaching are some of the ones he loves for in-person lectures, including OneNote for the digital whiteboard, RStudio for interactive coding and data analysis, and Jupyter Notebooks run on Syzygy for allowing students to experiment with code and data.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has required a mass migration to the digital world, and post-secondary learning is no exception. As the University of Alberta prepares to continue delivering course content primarily remotely in the Fall 2020, the Faculty of Science has connected with some of our top instructors and scientists to illustrate what the university experience will look like in the Fall 2020 term. While delivery may look different, what remains the same is our strong commitment to an engaging and quality education and experience for our students.

When asked for advice that he’s sharing with his students, Kashlak replied, “Stay safe, stay healthy, and always look at the data."

Hear more about Kashlak’s plans for Fall 2020. 



Learn more about how the University of Alberta is preparing to engage students for September and beyond on our Fall 2020 hub. 


Students, faculty, and staff can stay up-to-date with the latest information on COVID-19 for the campus community online.