Smart Pedagogy-Focused Design and Development of Innovative Curriculum for Data Visualization

Abstract

Data visualization enables the users to uncover actionable insights by presenting information and data in various graphical forms, and often as interactive graphs, charts, diagrams and maps. The advanced data visualization systems and well-educated experienced users transform messy, massive data sets into better understanding of existing issues, well-structured discussions of those problems, well-justified data-driven proposals, predictions and strategic decisions. As any applied area, data visualization has its own set of concepts, methods, approaches, algorithms, best practices, technologies and systems that must be learned by the users. However, these days it is important not just to teach a new subject or topic, but also to teach it in a smart way - using smart pedagogy - with the goal to maximize student learning outcomes. This paper presents the up-to-date findings and outcomes of a multi-aspect project at the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, the Department of Education, Counseling and Leadership, and the InterLabs Research Institute at Bradley University (IL, USA) that is aimed to design, develop and test the innovative data visualization curriculum based on corresponding features of smart pedagogy.