Tim Slater: Modern Astronomy Education
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This document describes a presentation by Tim Slater on modern astronomy teaching. It outlines a continuum of teaching strategies ranging from boring lectures to active learning techniques. Slater discusses the effectiveness of different strategies like lectures, flipped classrooms, think-pair-share activities, and tutorial approaches. He emphasizes that students learn best when they are actively engaged in discussion and problem-solving rather than passively listening to lectures. The document also highlights strategies developed by Slater and his colleagues to scaffold students' learning of scientific inquiry using Hubble Space Telescope data.
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Tim Slater: Modern Astronomy Education
- 1. Tim Slater timslaterwyo@gmail.com University of Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Professor of Science Education http://www.caperteam.com Characterizing the Teaching Spectrum Twitter: #SlaterClass
- 2. Before we get started, if you have a smart phone- get the CAPERCard Smart Phone APP (just search for CAPERCard on iPhone app or on GooglePlay on Android)
- 3. IAU Symposium 326 Future Directions of Astronomy Education Research • Heidleberg, Germany • 3-7 October 2016 • www.CAPERteam.com/IAUs326
- 4. Tim Slater timslaterwyo@gmail.com University of Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Professor of Science Education http://www.caperteam.com MODERN ASTRONOMY TEACHING Characterizing the Teaching Spectrum Twitter: @CAPERteam or #SlaterClass
- 5. Why do we want to do a better job teaching science? MIT graduation
- 6. 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
- 7. 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.
- 8. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies
- 9. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words
- 10. How do you characterize what is going on here?
- 11. 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!
- 12. 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.
- 13. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies 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.
- 14. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies 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?
- 15. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller
- 17. We professors often forget how we learned! Eventually, Billy came to dread his father’s lectures over all other forms of punishment.
- 18. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 19. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 20. 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
- 22. Personal Responder Devices • What are responders? – IR or Radio wireless voting device – Sometimes referred to as Classroom Communication Systems (CCS), “clickers”, etc.
- 23. Class Response System – Low Tech A C B D A B C D
- 24. Class Response System – Low Tech A C B D
- 25. 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")
- 26. Class Response System – Low Tech
- 28. 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?
- 29. 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
- 30. 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
- 31. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 33. 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.
- 34. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 35. 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: AstroLrner-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
- 36. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Think-Pair- Share Questioning Strategies (e.g., clicker questions or peer instruction groups Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 37. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Think-Pair- Share Questioning Strategies (e.g., clicker questions or peer instruction groups Lecture- Tutorial Approach injecting Socratic questioning into small group discussions Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 38. Imagine you’ve just heard a great, fantastic, enthusiastic, clever, clear, well illustrated, and scientifically accurate lecture on
- 40. 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
- 41. Sun NOT TO SCALE Orbit of the Moon Earth A B C D E What Causes Moon Phases • Before Lecture 5% correct The Effectiveness of Lecture-Tutorial Approach to Introductory Astronomy, Prather, Slater, Adams, et. al., Astronomy Education Review (2004) 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?
- 42. Sun NOT TO SCALE Orbit of the Moon Earth A B C D E What Causes Moon Phases • Before Lecture 5% correct • After Lecture 53% correct The Effectiveness of Lecture-Tutorial Approach to Introductory Astronomy, Prather, Slater, Adams, et. al., Astronomy Education Review (2004) 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?
- 44. 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.
- 45. 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.
- 46. 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
- 47. Sun NOT TO SCALE Orbit of the Moon Earth A B C D E What Causes Moon Phases • Before Lecture 5% correct • After Lecture 53% correct • After 10-min tutorial 72% correct 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?
- 48. A Commonly Held Inaccurate Model of a Student’s Conceptual Framework tabla rasa Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbs
- 49. A Commonly Held Inaccurate Model of Teaching and Learning Bill Watterson, Adapted from Joe Reddish, Calvin and Hobbs AAPT San Diego
- 51. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Think-Pair- Share Questioning Strategies (e.g., clicker questions or peer instruction groups Lecture- Tutorial Approach injecting Socratic questioning into small group discussions
- 52. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Think-Pair- Share Questioning Strategies (e.g., clicker questions or peer instruction groups Lecture- Tutorial Approach injecting Socratic questioning into small group discussions Scaffolded scientific research experiences and role playing Flipped Classrooms:
- 55. The fatal teaching error is to give answers to students who do not yet have questions
- 56. 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
- 57. Which part do we fade first? 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 MOST DFFICULT
- 58. 1. Communicate and defend conclusions based on collected evidence, then 2. Design strategies to pursue and collect data- based evidence, then 3. Ask questions answerable through a scientific approach More support for the harder parts 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
- 60. 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.
- 61. 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
- 66. 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
- 67. 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: bfs-labs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
- 68. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classtime
- 69. THE TYPICAL CLASSROOM Students watch you lecture before going home to do assignments
- 70. THE FLIPPED CLASSROOM Students watch lectures via web streaming at home AND use class time for collaborative group learning
- 71. 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?
- 72. A Continuum of Teaching Strategies Boring, monotone lectures defining vocabulary words Enthusiastic- ally delivered, cleverly illustrated, highly entertaining story teller Think-Pair- Share Questioning Strategies (e.g., clicker questions or peer instruction groups Lecture- Tutorial Approach injecting Socratic questioning into small group discussions Scaffolded scientific research experiences and role playing Flipped Classrooms: lectures watched at home and HW activities occur during classt ime
- 73. 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
- 74. BOTTOM LINE: What you are doing is relentlessly searching for the teachable moment
- 75. 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
- 76. IAU Symposium 326 Future Directions of Astronomy Education Research • Heidleberg, Germany • 3-7 October 2016 • www.CAPERteam.com/IAUs326
- 77. Tim Slater timslaterwyo@gmail.com University of Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Professor of Science Education http://www.caperteam.com MODERN ASTRONOMY TEACHING Characterizing the Teaching Spectrum Twitter: @CAPERteam or #SlaterClass
- 78. 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