West Point has a long history with sports. Its first football game was played in 1890 on “The Plain,” after the cadets were challenged by their Navy counterparts. Since then, fans of both teams have been carefully keeping track of wins, losses and scores. So, it would seem natural that sports statistics be incorporated into the U.S. Military Academy curriculum.
But how?
Col. Nicholas Clark and Lt. Col. Andrew Lee, academy professor and associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, respectively, have an idea. They received $130,000 of a $1.1 million four-year National Science Foundation award to develop tailored educational pathways through the use of sports statistics to teach data science. Clark and Lee are working closely with a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Baylor, St. Lawrence and the University of Pittsburgh. To help develop innovative approaches, the researchers have partnered with sports statisticians with professional sports organizations and on-air personalities from ESPN and elsewhere.
“Sports statistics is a rapidly growing field that hasn’t yet played a major role in data science education,” Clark, co-principal investigator, said. “We’re excited to partner with other leaders in data science to revolutionize how we teach this important subject.”
While Carnegie Mellon is the lead institution for the project, Clark emphasizes that all of the partners take a very egalitarian approach to the research, as they work together to gather information and put all the components together. The team meets every other week, and they connect with people from amateur and professional sports organizations and educational institutions.
“Using CMU’s ISLE (Integrated Statistics Learning Environment) computer system, we are in the process of creating and publishing modules using sports statistics. For example, West Point is currently working with Baylor on exploring statistical models that can predict when a world record in the marathon will occur,” Clark said.
West Point’s partnerships with the other institutions grew from relationships between professors who work on Sports Statistics, according to Clark. During Joint Statistics meetings over the past several years, the team sought closer collaboration and thus decided to focus their research on leveraging the use of sports data in undergraduate data science education as an alternative to drier textbook examples.
Indeed, data science has become increasingly significant to the Army in the past few years, as the need to read, evaluate and understand data is critical to solving problems and developing its workforce with the goal of providing optimal support for its Soldiers. To this end, Clark and Lee’s participation demonstrates how education and pedagogical tools developed at West Point can benefit others in society. Further, data literacy skills that faculty develop as part of this award will be exported to Army units by assisting in the development of courses such as Data Literacy 101 that are currently being taught across Army formations by West Point faculty.
Cadets will likewise benefit from the research. They will learn how to better communicate data analytics and data literacy skills to others through participation in Sports Statistics workshops and aiding in the development of train the trainer courses. This will allow them to have a deeper subject matter expertise and give them practical tools that they will be able to use upon graduation.
To learn more about the Department of Mathematical Sciences, visit https://bit.ly/WP_Math.
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