iStarDB (The Astronomy Education Research Repository)
Not a member yet
2071 research outputs found
Sort by
Major outcomes of an authentic astronomy research experience professional development program: An analysis of 8 years of data from a teacher research program
No full textThe NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) provides a year-long authentic astronomy research project by partnering a research astronomer with small groups of educators. NITARP has worked with a total of 103 educators since 2005. In this paper, surveys are explored that were obtained from 74 different educators, at up to four waypoints during the course of 13 months, from the class of 2010 through the class of 2017; those surveys reveal how educator participants describe the major changes and outcomes in themselves fostered by NITARP. Three-quarters of the educators self-report some or major changes in their understanding of the nature of science. The program provides educators with experience collaborating with astronomers and other educators, and forges a strong link to the astronomical research community; the NITARP community of practice encourages and reinforces these linkages. During the experience, educators get comfortable with learning complex new concepts, with ∼40% noting in their surveys that their approach to learning has changed. Educators are provided opportunities for professional growth; at least 12% have changed career paths substantially in part due to the program, and 14% report that the experience was “life changing.” At least 60% express a desire to include richer, more authentic science activities in their classrooms. This work illuminates what benefits the program brings to its participants; the NITARP approach could be mirrored in similar professional development programs in other STEM subjects
From Students to Teachers: Investigating the Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs and Experiences of Graduate Primary Teachers
No full textThe science achievement of primary students, both in Australia and abroad, has been the subject of intensive research in recent decades. Consequently, much research has been conducted to investigate primary science education. Within this literature, there is a striking juxtaposition between tertiary science teaching preparation programs and the experiences and outcomes of both teachers and students alike. Whilst many tertiary science teaching programs covary with positive outcomes for preservice teachers, reports of science at the primary school level continue to be problematic. This paper begins to explore this apparent contradiction by investigating the science teaching efficacy beliefs and experiences of a cohort of graduate primary teachers who had recently transitioned from preservice to inservice status. An opportunity sample of 82 primary teachers responded to the science teaching efficacy belief instrument A (STEBI-A), and 10 graduate teachers provided semi-structured interview data. The results showed that participants’ prior science teaching efficacy belief growth, which occurred during their tertiary science education, had remained durable after they had completed their teaching degrees and began their careers. Qualitative data showed that their undergraduate science education had had a positive influence on their science teaching experiences. The participants’ school science culture, however, had mixed influences on their science teaching. The findings presented within this paper have implications for the direction of research in primary science education, the design and assessment of preservice primary science curriculum subjects and the role of school contexts in the development of primary science teachers
Gamified approach to teaching introductory astronomy online
No full text[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] An increased interest in using video games in educational contexts has led to many innovations in both formal and informal environments. Educational researchers, instructional designers, and educators have sought and developed ways to incorporate video games or gamelike elements into a curriculum. We present a study of a web-based college-level introductory astronomy class in which content is delivered entirely in a digital world setting through nonplayer characters and built-in minigames. Based on prior research on the potential benefits of video games for use in education, we expect that topics covered in the minigames, the most gamified aspects of the course, should be particularly effective. Using data collected through pre- and post-testing of two sections of ASTRO 001V (the designation given in Penn State’s course catalog) with the Test Of Astronomy Standards, we focused our analysis on six questions that pertain directly to minigame topics. We found that two of these questions showed encouraging gains, while the other four demonstrated that students continued to hold on to common alternate conceptions within those topic areas. This finding suggests that more work is required to understand how to improve the games in ways that will further support student astronomy learning., This article appears in the following collection
Assessing astronomy students’ views about the nature of scientific inquiry
No full text[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] Students taking a second astronomy course for nonscientists were asked to reflect on the nature of scientific inquiry three times during the first half of the semester. First, they were assigned a short paper in which they were asked to argue for or against the thesis that observers of the night sky in ancient civilizations were scientists, and nearly all of the students argued that yes, they were. Second, they were asked to write a second paper in which they argued the opposite of their first thesis. Lastly, they were asked, on a midterm exam, to write an essay about whether the Ancient Greek astronomers were good scientists. In writing these papers and essays, many students included definitions of science or scientists, and these definitions progressed from paper to paper. In addition, the evidence students used to argue that ancient observers were scientists changed, with students becoming more expertlike., This article appears in the following collection
New Science, New Media: An Assessment of the Online Education and Public Outreach Initiatives of The Dark Energy Survey
No full textAs large-scale international collaborations become the standard for astronomy research, a wealth of opportunities have emerged to create innovative education and public outreach (EPO) programming. In the past two decades, large collaborations have focused EPO strategies around published data products. Newer collaborations have begun to explore other avenues of public engagement before and after data are made available. We present a case study of the online EPO program of The Dark Energy Survey, currently one of the largest international astronomy collaborations actively taking data. DES EPO is unique at this scale in astronomy, as far as we are aware, as it evolved organically from scientists' passion for EPO and is entirely organized and implemented by the volunteer efforts of collaboration scientists. We summarize the strategy and implementation of eight EPO initiatives. For content distributed via social media, we present reach and user statistics over the 2016 calendar year. DES EPO online products reached ~2,500 users per post, and 94% of these users indicate a predisposition to science-related interests. We find no obvious correlation between post type and post reach, with the most popular posts featuring the intersections of science and art and/or popular culture. We conclude that one key issue of the online DES EPO program was designing material which would inspire new interest in science. The greatest difficulty of the online DES EPO program was sustaining scientist participation and collaboration support; the most successful programs are those which capitalized on the hobbies of participating scientists. We present statistics and recommendations, along with observations from individual experience, as a potentially instructive resource for scientists or EPO professionals interested in organizing EPO programs and partnerships for large science collaborations or organizations
A Century of Astronomy at The Thacher School
No full textThe Thacher School has a rich legacy of education and research in astronomy that dates back over a century to correspondence in 1906 between our founder, Sherman Thacher, and the Director of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, George Hale. Nobel prize winning physicist Robert Millikan served on the School’s Board of Trustees and conducted cosmic ray measurements on our campus in 1928. From 1930 to 1941, students and faculty from the School took annual trips to Pasadena to see the 100-inch Hooker telescope at Mt. Wilson and tour the Huntington Library and Caltech. Edwin Hubble gave the commencement address on our campus in 1942 and aluminized the mirror of an 8-inch telescope at the request of one of our students 10 years later. The Summer Science Program (SSP), which brought together some of the nation’s brightest math and science students to participate in an intensive, 6-week immersion in astronomy, operated on our campus for 40 years starting in 1959. A 24-inch astrograph built by Caltech was installed in an observatory building erected on our campus by UCLA in 1965 and was later used for preliminary testing of the UCSD Digicon spectrographs that were eventually installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. In 1999 the School ceased its affiliation with the SSP and the program relocated, leaving behind an empty observatory building. With the recent renovation of our observatory, including the installation of a fully automated 0.7 m telescope and a cooled, back-illuminated CCD camera, the School has recaptured its rich historical legacy and renewed its commitment to student education and research in astronomy
The Our Solar Siblings Pipeline: Tackling the data issues of the scaling problem for robotic telescope based astronomy education projects
No full textIn this paper, a pipeline designed to produce data products for education is described. The primary goal of the pipeline is to facilitate teacher usage of robotic telescopes in the classroom and to reduce administration time for project personnel. In so doing, it produces data products that are scientifically valid and robust using multiple different photometric measurement techniques to create catalogues of both instrumental measurements as well as calibrated measurements cross matched to popular astronomical catalogues where standard stars are available. The main blocking factors that the pipeline addresses are outlined, an overview of the pipeline is provided and it’s future development is forecast
Building an Online Astronomy Research Student Team at Stanford Online High School
No full textFor high-school students that have never met in person, and that never expect to meet in person, some unique considerations arise in building a research team. Thoughtful strengthening of team member relationships is both more challenging and more vital than it is for an in-person collaboration. Furthermore, team members must possess a deeper understanding of the scientific process than typical students. The Stanford Online High School (SOHS) science curriculum fosters both the technical savvy and the scientific awareness that are advantageous in structuring an effective online collaborative research experience. This article describes an Stanford Online High School (SOHS) instructor’s experience in cultivating the type of student for whom an online student research team experience is well-suited, and outlines some applications in the context of the Astronomy Research Seminar’s broadening scope
In-depth Teaching as Oriented-research About Seasons and the Sun/earth Model: Effects on Content Knowledge Attained by Pre-service Primary Teachers
No full textPre-service primary teachers mostly have negative attitudes towards science teaching and learning, and their science background is usually low. This usually results in them feeling unable or unconfident to teach science at school. A previous step to improve their willingness to teach science to children is that they feel they can learn in-depth any science core idea. To do that, a course conducted as oriented-research about a core science problem was developed and used to evaluate the influence of their previous science background and initial attitudes towards science teaching and learning on content knowledge attainment. The chosen science idea was about diurnal astronomy (Sun movements and the Sun/Earth model). Content knowledge attainment was assessed using learning indicators, which represent what pre-service teachers should “know” and “know how” on this science core idea. Overall, pre-service teachers achieved high learning levels on this topic, and no significant differences in content knowledge attained by students according to both initial attitudes and science background were found. This suggests that this teaching methodology could be useful for pre-service teachers to achieve a thorough knowledge on science core ideas, which is considered to be an important step to improve their willingness to teach science at the primary school
Video Killed the Writing Assignment
No full textAn introductory Astronomy survey course is often taken to satisfy a college graduation requirement for non-science majors at colleges around the United States. In this course, material that can be broadly categorized into topics related to “the sky”, “the Solar System”, “the Galaxy”, and “cosmology” is discussed. Even with the wide variety of topics in these categories, though, students may not be 100% interested in the course content, and it is almost certain that a specific topic about which a student wishes to learn is not covered. To at least partly address these issues, to appeal to all of the students in this class, and to allow students to explore topics of their choice, a video project has been assigned to students at Albion College as a class activity. In this assignment, students are asked to create a video of a famous (or not) astronomer, astronomical object or discovery, or telescope observatory to present to the class. Students work in pairs to create a video that is original and imaginative and includes accurate scientific content. For this project, then, students use a familiar technology and exercise their creativity while learning a little (or a lot of) science along the way. Herein data on types and topics of videos, examples of videos, assignment requirements and grading rubrics, lessons learned, and student comments will be discussed and shared