Resumen

Five decades of research and curriculum development on the teaching and learning of statistics have produced many recommendations from both researchers and national organizations on the statistical education of our students. Within the last ten years work by both statisticians and statistics educators has focused on a collection of big ideas that are the most important concepts and processes to develop the statistical thinking of our students, our work force, and the lifelong statistical literacy of our citizens. In this paper I look back at the roots of big ideas in statistics education and identify what I believe are the two most important overarching ideas for the statistical education of our students as they progress from the elementary years into tertiary. The paper discusses research on student thinking about big ideas in statistics and presents recommendations for the future of teaching and research in statistics education.