tim slater: modern astronomy education

Tim Slater [email protected]

University of Wyoming Excellence in

Higher Education Endowed Professor of Science Education

http://www.caperteam.com

Characterizing the Teaching Spectrum

Twitter: #SlaterClass

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IAU Symposium 326

Future Directions of Astronomy Education Research

• Heidleberg, Germany

• 3-7 October 2016

• www.CAPERteam.com/IAUs326





MODERN ASTRONOMY TEACHING Characterizing the Teaching Spectrum

Twitter: @CAPERteam or #SlaterClass






Why do we want to do a better job teaching science?

MIT graduation

../../../Videos/MIT genuises with lightbulb.mp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOw8aiyMUAU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg

What Astronomy Professors Want

“I’d like to have my students exit my class knowing more about astronomy, and also being more scientifically literate.... I’d like them to know more about the universe around them, and also about the way that astronomy is done, and the nature of science.... “

Twitter BackChannel

#caperteam

The National Academy of Science Agrees

1. Know, use and interpret scientific explanations of the natural world.

2. Generate and evaluate scientific evidence and explanations.

3. Understand the nature and development

of scientific knowledge.

4. Participate productively in

scientific practices and

scientific discourse.

A Continuum of Teaching Strategies


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

How do you characterize what is going on here?

How well do enthusiastically delivered, cleverly illustrated, and precisely articulated lectures

work to help most of your students learn?

1. A: RED: Works great for most of my students

2. B: GREEN: Only serves to motivate self-study

3. C: Yellow Has essentially no utility or value

4. D: Blue: Is best for my brightest students

Do not discuss your thinking with others until given permission to do so!

Some classic research results

• Verner & Dickinson (1967) found only 66% of students showed signs of attention to lectures after 18 minutes and no students were completely attentive after 35 minutes

• Trenaman (in McLeish, 1968) found students to assimilate appreciably less after the first fifteen minutes, and after thirty minutes either ceased to take in anything further or forgot what they had memorized earlier.

• Lloyd (1968) found the number of facts taken down by students in their notes to decline steadily until the last ten minutes.

• Johnston and Calhoun (1969) found the middle of a talk less well remembered than the beginning and end.


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

The Montillation of Traxoline (attributed to the insight of Judy Lanier.)

It is very important that you learn about traxoline. Traxoline is a new form of zionter. It is montilled in Ceristanna. The Ceristannians gristerlate large amounts of fevon and then brachter it to quasel traxoline. Traxoline may well be one of our most lukized snezlaus in the future because of our zionter lescelidge.


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

The Montillation of Traxoline (attributed to the insight of Judy Lanier.)

It is very important that you learn about traxoline. Traxoline is a new form of zionter. It is montilled in Ceristanna. The Ceristannians gristerlate large amounts of fevon and then brachter it to quasel traxoline. Traxoline may well be one of our most lukized snezlaus in the future because of our zionter lescelidge.

TEST QUESTIONS: 1. What is traxoline? 2. Where is traxoline montilled? 3. How is traxoline quasalled? 4. Why is traxoline important?


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly

entertaining story teller

We professors often forget

how we learned!

Eventually, Billy came to dread his father’s lectures over all other

forms of punishment.


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Flipped Classrooms:

lectures watched at home and

HW activities

occur during classtime

Ask Students Questions…

Should you use…. Questions with no-wait time Low-level questions Choral response pre-programmed questions Rapid reward questions Non-specific feedback questions

Research shows students benefit greatly by speaking to each other, not just to you

Personal Responder Devices • What are responders?

– IR or Radio wireless voting device

– Sometimes referred to as Classroom Communication

Systems (CCS), “clickers”, etc.

Class Response System – Low Tech

A

C

B

D A B C D


A

C

B

D

CAPERCard Smart Phone APP

It's free in the iPhone app store (search "CAPERCard" ") or free for the Android at Google play at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hexational.capercard (Search "CAPERCard")

Think-Pair-Share (ConcepTests) Answer first by yourself, then with a partner:

If you breathe in O2 and out CO2, why does mouth-to-mouth CPR work?

Think-Pair-Share (ConcepTests) Answer first by yourself, then with a partner:

If you breathe in O2 and out CO2, why does mouth-to-mouth CPR work?

1. Humans can convert CO2 to needed O2

2. It’s the physical breathing action, not the O2 that mouth-to-mouth actually does

3. You exhale CO2 AND O2

4. Mouth-to-mouth doesn’t actually

work, except on TV


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Flipped Classrooms:


HW activities


Given that a seed grows into a massive tree, where does most of the wood of the tree come from?

1. From water

2. From dirt and soil

3. From the air

4. Its already in the seed.


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Flipped Classrooms:


HW activities


It’s not what the instructor does that matters; rather, it is what the students do that matters Join the conversation: send a blank email to:

[email protected]


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Think-Pair-Share

Questioning Strategies

(e.g., clicker questions

or peer instruction

groups

Flipped Classrooms:


HW activities



Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Think-Pair-Share


(e.g., clicker questions or

peer instruction

groups

Lecture-Tutorial

Approach injecting Socratic

questioning into small

group discussions

Flipped Classrooms:


HW activities


Imagine you’ve just heard a great, fantastic, enthusiastic, clever, clear, well illustrated, and scientifically accurate lecture on

The diagram below shows Earth and the Sun as well as five different possible positions for the Moon. Which position of the Moon best corresponds with the phase of the Moon shown in the figure at the right?

Sun

NOT TO SCALE

Orbit of the Moon

Earth

A

B

C

D

E

What Causes Moon Phases

Sun

NOT TO SCALE

Orbit of the Moon

Earth

A

B

C

D

E


• Before Lecture 5% correct

The Effectiveness of Lecture-Tutorial Approach to Introductory Astronomy,

Prather, Slater, Adams, et. al., Astronomy Education Review (2004)


Sun

NOT TO SCALE

Orbit of the Moon

Earth

A

B

C

D

E



• After Lecture 53% correct The Effectiveness of Lecture-Tutorial Approach to Introductory Astronomy,

Prather, Slater, Adams, et. al., Astronomy Education Review (2004)


Imagine you’ve just heard a great, fantastic, enthusiastic, clever, clear, well illustrated, and scientifically accurate lecture on

• MOON PHASES

What time is it for the person shown in Figure 1? Circle one: 6am (sunrise) 12pm (noon) 6pm (sunset) 12am (midnight) First, draw a stick-figure person on Earth in Figure 1 for each of the three times that you did not choose above. Now, label each of the stick-figures that you drew with the time that the person would be located there. Answer the following questions for the position of the Moon shown in Figure 1. Which Moon phase would an Earth observer see? At what time will the Moon shown appear highest in the sky? At what time will the Moon shown appear to rise? At what time will the Moon shown appear to set?

MINI DEBATES Student 1: The phase of the Moon depends on how the Moon, Sun and Earth are aligned with one another. During some alignments only a small portion of the Moon’s surface will receive light from the Sun, in which case we would see a crescent Moon.

Student 2: I disagree. The Moon would always get the same amount of sunlight; it’s just that in some alignments Earth casts a larger shadow on the Moon. That’s why the Moon isn’t always a full Moon.

CAPER Center for Astronomy & Physics Education Research

Active

Learning Tutorials For

Astronomy & the Planetary

Sciences

Stephanie Slater

Lancelot Kao

Windsor Morgan

Rebecca Oppenheimer

Inge Heyer, Editor

PonoPubs.com ISBN-13: 978-1515190653

ISBN-10: 151519065X

Sun

NOT TO SCALE

Orbit of the Moon

Earth

A

B

C

D

E



• After Lecture 53% correct

• After 10-min tutorial 72% correct


A Commonly Held Inaccurate Model of a Student’s Conceptual Framework

tabla rasa

Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbs

A Commonly Held Inaccurate Model of Teaching and Learning

Bill Watterson, Adapted from Joe Reddish, Calvin and Hobbs AAPT San Diego


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Think-Pair-Share



peer instruction

groups

Lecture-Tutorial



group discussions


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Think-Pair-Share



peer instruction

groups

Lecture-Tutorial



group discussions

Scaffolded scientific research

experiences and role playing

Flipped Classrooms:

The fatal teaching error is to give answers to students who do not yet

have questions

Teaching Inquiry in Astronomy

1. Ask questions answerable through a scientific approach

2. Design strategies to pursue and collect data-based evidence

3. Communicate and defend conclusions based on collected evidence

Adapted from Bell

TRADITIONAL APPROACH

Which part do we fade first?




MOST DFFICULT

1. Communicate and defend conclusions based

on collected evidence, then

2. Design strategies to pursue and collect data-based evidence, then


More support for the harder parts




1. What are the observable characteristics of galaxies?

2. What type of galaxy is most common?

3. Which direction do galaxies typically spin?

4. What fraction of galaxies observed appear to be merging with other galaxies?

5. Design your own answerable research question, propose a plan to pursue evidence, collect data using GalaxyZoo, and create an evidence-based conclusion.

Backwards Faded Scaffolding Schematic

Sequence

Research

Question

Source

Research

Procedure

Source

Data and

Evidence

Source

Conclusion

Source

1. Teacher Teacher Teacher Teacher

2. Teacher Teacher Teacher Student

3. Teacher Teacher Student Student

4. Teacher Student Student Student

5. Student Student Student Student

The underlying here goal is that students see and experience inquiry many times BEFORE they start to design their own questions

NASA Crowns Educators as ‘Top Stars’

Using the Hubble Deep Field, Stephanie Slater, Tim

Slater, and Dan Lyons from the CAPER Center for

Astronomy & Physics Education Research have

developed an innovative strategy that carefully

scaffolds undergraduate non-science majoring

students' learning of scientific inquiry. Students are

guided through four different inquiry experiences using

HST data and progressively given more and more

responsibility. At the end of the lesson, students

generate their own scientific research questions and

use HST data to conduct a scientific investigation.

http://topstars.strategies.org/showcase.php?entryID=571&action=detail

Introduction to Research in Astronomy

Engaging in Astronomical Inquiry, 2ed Stephanie J Slater, Timothy F. Slater, Chris Palma & Julia Kregenow

Pono Publishing, PonoPubs.com

Faculty Version Available Online Soon!

Join the conversation: send a blank email to: [email protected]


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Flipped Classrooms:

lectures watched at home and HW activities occur

during classtime

THE TYPICAL CLASSROOM

Students watch you lecture

before going home to do assignments

THE FLIPPED CLASSROOM

Students watch lectures via

web streaming at home AND use class time

for collaborative

group learning

What do I do during “flipped class time?”

Example Case Study

On Saturday night, we’ll set up six telescopes in the grocery store parking lot

• Which six objects will we show?

• How do we find them in the sky?

• What six “cool” things will we say?


Boring, monotone

lectures defining

vocabulary words

Enthusiastic-ally

delivered, cleverly

illustrated, highly


Think-Pair-Share



peer instruction

groups

Lecture-Tutorial



group discussions

Scaffolded scientific research

experiences and role playing

Flipped Classrooms:


HW activities

occur during classt ime

Understanding the Growing Diversity Among Our Students

Gender & Sex

Race & Ethnicity

Handicap Status

Age & Experience

Poverty & Privilege

Urbanicity & 1st Language

Motivation

Learning Styles

Definition of Learning

BOTTOM LINE: What you are doing is relentlessly searching for the

teachable moment

The best learners … often make the worst teachers. They are, in a very real sense, perceptually challenged. They cannot imagine what it must be like to struggle to learn

something that comes so naturally to them.

-Stephen Brookfield

You have to love your students. If you can’t learn to love your students, you’re in the wrong line of business.

Get out.

-Paul Hewitt

IAU Symposium 326

Future Directions of Astronomy Education Research

• Heidleberg, Germany

• 3-7 October 2016

• www.CAPERteam.com/IAUs326





MODERN ASTRONOMY TEACHING Characterizing the Teaching Spectrum

Twitter: @CAPERteam or #SlaterClass






Impact of Professor’s Disposition

How do students see you?

• Hoping everyone will get an A OR serving as a gateway hurdle course?

• pump OR a filter ?

• Coach OR a barrier ?

• Leading a celebration of what they’ve learned OR trying to find out what they don’t know on tests?

YOU IMPACT PERFORMANCE