It's Not a Pipe Dream: Teaching Astronomy in Ways Students and Instructors Love and that Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Abstract
Astronomy is a gateway science, and many students eagerly seek astronomy courses to fulfill general science requirements. These courses cover the Solar System, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe. You might have a similarly named course at your institution. Despite decades of research (Fink, L. D. 2013 and references therein) that show students excel in active learning environments, traditional lectures persist in astronomy courses. When we do try to incorporate more active learning techniques or discussion based courses, the assessment methods are still multiple choice tests where students are recalling bald facts. When questions attempt to delve deeper to assess whether students can think critically about astronomical topics, we are usually disappointed by the results. It is critical that we have conversations about astronomy pedagogy, techniques, and curricula that break the mold. By doing so, we hope to create curricula that will promote level appropriate evaluation skills of astronomy, with foundational knowledge to strengthen student understanding, and for students to still be in love with astronomy at the end of the course. Here we open a conversation about an undergraduate astronomy course we developed at the University of Virginia: "Unsolved Mysteries in the Universe". This course motivates understanding of what we do know about the universe to get to the "good stuff": what we don't understand. One guiding principle is that critical thinking skills are not exercised when students are handed facts (see Meyers 1996, Ken Bain 2004). We have tailored both in-class and out-of-class activities to promote student led discussions, aligned assessment goals with learning objectives, and successfully taught this course for large ( > 100 students) and small ( < 30 students) classes. With this poster, we hope to showcase what teaching resources, alternative grading schemes (e.g., specifications grading), and course structure and work help make this course successful.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23520206C