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Work integrated learning (WIL) has been the norm in disciplines such as medicine, teacher education and engineering; however, it has not been implemented until recently in statistics and not for every student in computer science education. There seems to be no literature on the use of WIL for data science education. With the changed focus of universities to making graduates "job ready", university-industry collaboration widened to encompass learning and teaching. Undoubtedly authentic problems coming from industry created opportunities for students to practice their future profession before graduation. This shift in the curriculum, however, brought its challenges both for the students and their lecturers. In this paper, we present a case study and propose an assessment framework for data science WIL.

"We have too many first-year statistics students but too few who choose to major in statistics" is a common complaint among academics in the discipline of statistics, and our department is no exception. Many non-statistics academics appreciate the value of statistics to their discipline and include at least one statistics unit in their required units. However, students in such units often do not see the use of statistics within their discipline or the importance of learning statistics or quantitative skills in general, despite the current shortage of statisticians and deluge of data to be analysed. Our student numbers decline sharply by years of study, from first to second and from second to third. A handful of students who decide to major in statistics or decision science find themselves in high demand. In early 2016, just before the first semester started, we ran an event for the previous year's successful first-year statistics students to encourage more students to choose statistics or decision science as a second major in addition to their existing majors. We worked with our alumni so that the second-year students heard talks mainly by people like them instead of like us -- their lecturers. We called this event 'Statistics: Your Ticket to Anywhere'. In this paper, we describe how we structured the event, its outcomes for the department, and how it helped us to "unveil the curtain" and to show the value of statistics to the students in their chosen fields of study.

Opening Real Science (ORS) is a three-year government initiative developed as part of the Mathematics and Science Teachers program. It is a collaboration across universities involving teacher educators, scientists, mathematicians, statisticians and educational designers aimed at improving primary and secondary pre-service teachers' competence and confidence in mathematics and science. The ORS project has developed 25 online learning modules for pre-service teacher programs. Statistical literacy is prioritised. The Statistical Literacy Module for Primary Teachers (SL-P) adopts an inquiry-based approach and uses resources and contexts relevant to their practice. This paper documents the development and evaluation process of SL-P from its conception to implementation, and reviews the initial trials.

Virtual reality (VR) technology can increase prosocial behaviour toward a target person or group by enhancing their empathic response for the subject, but such technology has not always improved learning outcomes. This interdisciplinary study compared the potential advantages of delivering the same learning material about daily life in an ancient Greek household via two modes of delivery: VR technology and classroom lecture. The VR group explored a Greek villa containing historical artefacts and virtual characters with whom they were able to interact through set dialogues. The dialogues illustrated social hierarchies, gender relations, the situation of slaves, cult practice, and religious beliefs. The classroom group received the same information in a classroom environment. Both randomly-assigned groups answered a multiple-choice quiz to evaluate the knowledge gained. They also responded to open-text questions designed to test the degree of empathy that was aroused. We found that classroom lecture delivery was significantly superior in terms of the acquisition of factual knowledge, consistent with cognitive learning theory. We identified this as learning with the mind. The immersive VR environment, however, imparted a level of empathic response to the lived experiences of people in ancient Greece; in that sense it allowed learning with the heart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]