iStarDB (The Astronomy Education Research Repository)
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To Teach Or Not To Teach Astronomy, That Is The Question: Results Of A Survey Of Québec’s Elementary Teachers
No full textTo determine the extent of astronomy teaching in Quebec’s schools, we conducted an online survey of 500 Québec’s elementary (K-6) teachers between January and March 2015. With a 35-items questionnaire, we wanted to find out how these elementary teachers teach astronomy (or not) to their classrooms, what is their background in Science & Technology (S&T), what pre-service education they received, the reasons why they teach astronomy or not to their students, the resources and materials they have at their disposal, their perception of the effectiveness of pre- and in-service training they received, and their perceived needs for in-service training. Results show that the majority of teachers surveyed didn’t study science beyond high school and have had no experience in S&T employment before becoming a teacher. We also found that only half of the teachers surveyed actually teach astronomy to their class, mostly by using reading and writing material, and that 39% of “Astronomy teachers” in our sample teach astronomy to their class between 6 and 10 hours per year. Major hurdles to astronomy teaching perceived by the teachers in our survey are a lack of experience and training in astronomy, a lack of resources and equipment, inadequate classroom arrangement, and their own, self-perceived incompetence in astronomy. Pre-service education in astronomy, in science and in science teaching is also considered mainly unsatisfactory, or non-existent in the case of astronomy; in-service training in astronomy is mainly composed of conversations with colleagues. Most respondents thus consider in-service training in astronomy to be inefficient or inexistent
Teaching seasons with hands-on models: model transformation
No full textThe purpose of this study was to examine the effects of using ‘hands-on’ models (HOMs) to teach the subject of seasons – a topic about which students often have misconceptions – on students’ expressed models. To this end, three different HOMs were developed. The study sample consisted of 80 seventh graders (ages 12–13). The study had a quasi-experimental design, and a model with a control group was used. The experimental group and the control group were assigned randomly. The study data were collected using an open-ended question form that was administered three times: pre-instruction, post-instruction and a long time after instruction (permanence). The collected data were analysed using the content analysis technique. Frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the changes in the students’ expressed models. The results of the analyses showed that using HOMs was an effective method for teaching the subject of seasons. It was concluded that whereas teaching with HOMs led the students to a ‘scientific’ model, the teaching method used in the control group led the students to a ‘synthesis’ model. In addition, the learning that occurred in the group taught with the HOMs was found to be more permanent than the learning that occurred in the control group. Based on these results, the use of HOMs to teach astronomy and the generalisation of these models has been recommended. Lastly, issues to consider when teaching the subject of seasons have been outlined
Seeing in the Dark: Embodied Cognition in Amateur Astronomy Practice
No full textWe add to research on embodied cognition by investigating the observational practices of amateur astronomers. Specifically, we take an interactionist perspective and examine how the body is recruited, moment by moment, as a resource for producing and communicating meaning during field activity. The data corpus is a set of ethnographic video records and field notes on the routines of a community of astronomers, especially small-group interactions during planning, searching for, observing, and confirming sight of a celestial target. Within this space, our analysis highlights how different modalities of embodied action and reasoning (gestures, tool use, gaze, touch, and others) were deployed and coordinated throughout the process of observing a celestial object and how those emerged in the transactions among participants. Our findings rehearse many issues and topics in the contemporary literature (e.g., gesturing for measuring or representationally) but also reveal important, novel forms of embodied action and reasoning in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics practices (e.g., training the eyes in averted vision and inscribing a celestial scene onto one’s hand). More broadly, these findings further affirm the power of interactionist analyses of knowing and learning while also surfacing areas in which expanded theorizing is needed to account for the full set of
cognitive phenomena we observed
Linking introductory astronomy students' basic science knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, sources of information, and information literacy
No full text[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] We report on a study of almost 13 000 undergraduate students enrolled in introductory astronomy courses at the University of Arizona. From 1989 to 2016, students completed a basic science knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes survey. From 2014 to 2016, a subset of the sample completed an additional survey that probed their overall interest in science and astronomy, where they reported getting information about science, and their judgment of those sources. Our sample of mostly nonscience major students outperformed the general public on basic science knowledge questions during the time of the study. Additionally, there was very little change over the range of time of the study in students’ basic science knowledge whose scores averaged around 79% correct over the 27 years. Students’ self-reported demographic information and beliefs and attitudes in science and technology accounted for only 11% of the variance in their science knowledge scores and there was no systematic pattern between where students reported getting their information about science and their basic science knowledge. Despite this, there was a relationship between how students rated the reliability of sources and their science knowledge. Our findings support that introductory astronomy courses are opportunities to improve students’ attitudes towards science and ability to evaluate scientific information. Although this group of students’ basic science knowledge and attitudes remained relatively unchanged over 27 years there was a measurable relationship between students’ beliefs and attitudes, interest, science knowledge, and information literacy
Exploring how gender figures the identity trajectories of two doctoral students in observational astrophysics
No full text[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] This paper presents the cases of two doctoral students in observational astrophysics whose circumstances and experiences led them on a career trajectory out of academic research. In this article, I employ a sociocultural lens that provides insight into the dynamics of students’ experiences in astrophysics, which can in turn enrich our understandings of the lack of women in physics. I documented ethnographically two doctoral students’ experiences in a physics department at a large research university in Canada. In turn, I employed an analytic framework of figured worlds, cultural models, and identity trajectories to understand the challenges these two doctoral students faced. I use data drawn from observational field notes, interviews, and participants’ photo-narrative journals to explore the dominant cultural models of astrophysicist that were reproduced in their doctoral program. The analysis shows cultural models for recognizable astrophysicists in this doctoral program often did not fit neatly with these students’ experiences, and at times interfered with their trajectories into astrophysics careers. Additionally, results indicate that a prevailing discourse of gender neutrality and the rejection of normative femininity in astrophysics both afforded and constrained participants’ opportunities for recognition as insiders to astrophysics. However, the two participants repositioned themselves on alternative trajectories into physics teaching outside of academia, which had positive consequences for their astrophysicist identities. This study provides insights into the experiences of doctoral astrophysics that figure students’ insider or outsider identities, and the role that gender plays in the shaping of those identity and career trajectories
Investigating undergraduate students' ideas about the curvature of the Universe
No full text[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] As part of a larger project studying undergraduate students’ understanding of cosmology, we explored students’ ideas about the curvature of the Universe. We investigated preinstruction ideas held by introductory astronomy (ASTRO 101) students at three participating universities and postinstruction ideas at one. Through thematic analysis of responses to questions on three survey forms and preinstruction interviews, we found that prior to instruction a significant fraction of students said the Universe is round. Students’ reasoning for this included that the Universe contains round objects, therefore it must also be round, or an incorrect idea that the big bang theory describes an explosion from a central point. We also found that a majority of students think that astronomers use the term curvature to describe properties, such as dimensions, angles, or size, of the Universe or objects in the Universe, or that astronomers use the term curvature to describe the bending of space due to gravity. Students are skeptical that the curvature of the Universe can be measured, to a greater or lesser degree depending on question framing. Postinstruction responses to a multiple-choice exam question and interviews at one university indicate that students are more likely to correctly respond that the Universe as a whole is not curved postinstruction, though the idea that the Universe is round still persists for some students. While we see no evidence that priming with an elliptical or rectangular map of the cosmic microwave background on a postinstruction exam affects responses, students do cite visualizations such as diagrams among the reasons for their responses in preinstruction surveys., This article appears in the following collection
Mapping the Milky Way: A Radio Astronomy-Directed Investigation for Lecture-Based Astro 101 Courses
No full textThe Green Bank 20-meter radio telescope integrated into the Skynet Robotic Telescope Network offers a unique opportunity to engage learners in investigations that are not possible with optical telescopes. Radio investigation of the Milky Way using the neutral hydrogen (HI) 1420.41 MHz emission line have a long history with the educators at Green Bank Observatory and through the Skynet team. The project discussed considers how best to adapt these investigations into a large-enrollment, general education, introductory college astronomy course (“Astro 101”). Astro 101 courses serve over 250,000 students nationwide each year. To conduct a class-wide investigation of the Milky Way, we first have each student collect a 60-second radio spectral scan of the HI emission line for a single portion of the galactic disk. Once this class data over a wide range of galactic longitudes is combined, the students can use simple geometry and Doppler information to determine that we live in a spiral galaxy and that we orbit the galactic center clockwise (if looking down on the Galactic North Pole). Together with archived data of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, a galactic rotation curve and an enclosed mass curve can be created to illustrate the “missing mass” problem as evidence for existence of dark matter. Results from a formative assessment illustrate that this project helps students connect concepts learned in class and gain confidence in their abilities to do scientific research. Activity lecture slides and data spreadsheets are freely available
Hubble Plots in High School: The Faulkes Telescope Project
No full textThis presentation describes the progress of a PhD research project into the impact of astronomy-based education resources on students’ engagement with their physics syllabus. As part of the Faulkes Telescope Project and Gaia Science Alerts, the resources allow schools to “Adopt a Supernova” and track it over time using remote robotic telescopes. Engagement is measured through student and teacher pre- and post-engagement questionnaires, classroom observations and focus groups on a multiple case-study basis
45 Years of Telescope Automation at MIT’s Wallace Astrophysical Observatory
No full textSince the conception of the George R. Wallace Jr. Astrophysical Observatory (WAO) at MIT in 1971 we have had a focus on applying cutting-edge technology to astronomical equipment and enabling automated or remote observing for scientists and students alike. A key strength of our program has been including undergraduates in the research, design, and construction of systems. These experiences have led to breakthroughs that have been invaluable for both the observatory and the observers. Wallace Observatory was also the site of the first robotic telescope conference (1975), “Telescope Automation,” which set stringent goals to which we compare our observatory today. Forty-five years later, looking back on the days of punch cards and tape reels at WAO, we must now ask, did we achieve the goals set out for us in the 1970’s? Here, we discuss this question and examine our more recent efforts to automate our modern educational telescopes while looking forward to an exciting upgrade to one of our original telescope domes
International Astronomical Search Collaboration: An Online Outreach Program in Astronomical Discovery for High School & College Students
No full textThe International Astronomical Search Collaboration was founded in October 2006 at Hardin- Simmons University in Abilene, TX. This is an online educational outreach program, in which high school and college students make original discoveries of Solar System objects; such objects include near-Earth objects, Main Belt asteroids, Trojan asteroids, Centaurs, trans- Neptunian objects, and comets.Images from professional observatories are provided online to the participating schools. Students download these and use the software Astrometrica to search for, discover, and measure these objects. The student observations and astrometric measurements are validated, then submitted to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University. To date, there have been 1311 submissions of new objects not yet confirmed with subsequent observations, and 50 that are confirmed as new objects, numbered and named by their student discoverers