This project is supported by the National Science Foundation, Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, under the Cyberlearning & Future Learning Technologies program (Award #2302794).

The CAST project seeks to transform how data storytelling is taught in postsecondary education. While professionals in data science and analytics excel in using data to communicate powerful, actionable stories, teaching these skills effectively—especially at scale—remains a persistent challenge in higher education.

Through a collaboration between the University of Alabama, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and SRI Education, this project develops Story Studio, an intelligent, research-driven learning platform designed to support educators in teaching the art and science of data storytelling.

Objectives

The project aims to:

• Enhance educators’ capacity to coach data storytelling across diverse learners
• Build an intelligent system that recommends design patterns, narrative structures, and feedback based on students’ storytelling development
• Contribute to research in evidence-based learning technology, educational data mining, and cognitive task modeling

Broader Impacts

• Equity & Access: Support scalable teaching of essential data communication skills across diverse learning institutions, including community colleges
• Open Science: Release software, intelligent algorithms, and anonymized data logs as open-source resources for the learning science community
• Workforce Development: Equip future data professionals with a critical skill increasingly sought across industries

Please contact us to get license to play with the software products (JupyterHub Server and Story Studio) derived from this project!