On Saturday, 3rd June, at Penn State University, Maxine received the George Cobb Lifetime Award in Statistics Education. This is a big deal, as it was the first time a non-American had received this award. Although we couldn’t be with her in the US, the Statistics department celebrated Maxine’s success here in Auckland at around the same time and sent her this video.
The award recognises Maxine’s research, which has been hugely influential in New Zealand and internationally. Her seminal Ph.D. and wide-ranging research have influenced how generations of students and teachers learn from data. She was the lead writer for a path-breaking national curriculum of international significance, as Chris pointed out, more than that, Maxine has been at the heart of groups of people making pretty radical changes in statistics education over the last thirty years in Aotearoa. Rose Hipkins even wrote a 2014 paper entitled Doing research that matters: A success story from statistics education.
Chris Wild has been Maxine’s partner in crime and described how Maxine relentlessly asked questions of statisticians of all varieties to investigate how they worked with data and the dispositions and skills required to model complex problems and communicate uncertainty in data. Maxine’s Ph.D. research, frameworks, and insights have supported teachers and students in navigating the art and science of statistical inquiry, and her research and insights are apparent in both US GAISE reports.
A tradition of the award at USCOTS is to present the winner with a book - a collection of photos, congratulations, and shared memories. Reading through her book, the impact Maxine has had on many new and well-seasoned Stats Ed researchers worldwide is clear. Her superb SERJ and SDSE editorial skills and contributions to ICOTS and IASE, and the personal advice and guidance she has provided to statistics education researchers, have been invaluable. Do spend some time reading the tributes that flowed from all corners of the world for Maxine. We needed a box of tissues!
Maxine has also helped create a Stats Ed research community in Aotearoa and internationally through SRTL (Statistics Research, Teaching and Learning). This group of like-minded individuals formed over twenty years ago when Dan Ben-Zvi listened to Maxine’s talk about dealing with data at a maths conference and wanted to know more. Because so little time was given to data and Stats Ed talks, they decided to go their own way, and SRTL was born.
Earlier on in her career, Maxine was also foundational to Equals in Aotearoa - encouraging women in Mathematics. Maxine was the first female HoD Mathematics at Avondale college, where she started teaching. The words below are just some of the dispositions and skills of statisticians that Maxine described in her PhD research. We can’t help feeling these words could be describing Maxine herself. If you teach statistics and haven’t heard about the enquiry cycle or PPDAC here is a link.
Transnumeration, Creativity, Need for data, Compare, Connect, Skepticism, Imagination, Curiosity, Openness, Being logical, Perseverance, Engagement, A propensity to seek deeper meaning, Explanations, Models, New ideas, Grasping system dynamics, Believe,
A huge thanks to Chris Wild for wrangling Maxine’s nominators for the award and contributors to her book. Many people came out of the woodwork to acknowledge the lifetime achievements of a wonderful lady and exceptional leader in statistics education. Congratulations Maxine, and thank you for a career dedicated to statistics education.