The Test Set by Posit Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel: Teaching in the AI era — and keeping students engaged
Aug 11, 2025
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, a data science educator at Duke University and Posit, shares her compelling journey from actuarial science to the classroom. She discusses her innovative teaching philosophy, the 'whole game' approach that keeps students engaged. The conversation dives into her use of AI, specifically LLMs, for instant feedback on assignments. Mine also addresses the importance of manual coding skills in the age of AI and reflects on the unique relationship between the R and Python communities in fostering collaboration and open-source learning.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
From Actuary To Data Educator
- Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel moved from actuarial work to a statistics PhD because she enjoyed data tasks and teaching.
- She discovered coding in grad school and chose academia to keep teaching and working with data.
Early Data Quality And Reproducibility
- As an actuary she used an in-house tool to check data quality and moved reports into Excel to automate calculations.
- That early focus on reproducibility later shaped her approach to teaching and tooling.
Teach The Whole Workflow First
- The "whole game" teaches a simplified end-to-end workflow first, then iteratively deepens skills.
- This motivates learners by giving a complete, meaningful experience early on.
