iStarDB (The Astronomy Education Research Repository)
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2071 research outputs found
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Embedding Analogical Reasoning into 5E Learning Model: A Study of the Solar System
No full textThe purpose of this study was to investigate how the 5E learning model affects learning about the Solar System when an analogical model is utilized in teaching. The data were gathered in an urban middle school 7th grade science course while teaching relevant astronomy topics. The analogical model developed by the researchers was administered to 20 seventh grade students in a city of the Black Sea Region in Turkey. "The Solar System and Beyond: The space puzzle" unit was taught by using 5E learning model accompanied by analogical model during two class hours. In this case study, pre-experimental design with pre-test-post-test was used to collect data through questionnaire, reflective thinking scale, video recording, and informal observations. According to the findings of this study, the teaching intervention not only significantly increased the students' academic achievement but also improved their science process skills. The study suggests that analogies should be well-planned and deployed for teaching science courses. Furthermore, the number of the analogical models in textbooks should be increased to enrich meaningful learning for students' transition levels between concrete and abstract operational terms
Skynet Junior Scholars. From Idea to Enactment. Tales from the Trenches I: Implementation in 4-H settings.
No full textThe creators of Skynet Junior Scholars were ambitious to say the least when they set out to:- Develop online tools that enable middle school and high school aged youth to use robotic optical and radio telescopes to do astronomy- Create an inquiry-based curriculum that promotes critical thinking and scientific habits of mind- Proactively incorporate Principles of Universal Design in all SJS development tasks to ensure access by blind/low vision and deaf/hard of hearing youth- Prepare 180 adult youth leaders from diverse backgrounds including museum educators, amateur astronomers, teachers 4-H leaders to facilitate SJS activities in a variety of settings.After 3 years of development SJS is in full implementation mode. As of August, 2015, 105 youth leaders and leader supervisors from 24 states have completed professional development and many have formed SJS youth groups. In this paper we describe what it takes for a successful implementation of Skynet Junior Scholars in a 4-H setting, from the viewpoint of adult leaders in the trenches who have created novel implementation models to make SJS work in diverse environments from monthly 4-H meetings to immersive residential camps.4-H is the nation's largest positive youth development organization, with a membership of more than six million young people in the U.S. In 2003 the national organization formed a strong commitment to STEM education with the goal to "to engage one million new youth in a dynamic process of discovery and exploration in science, engineering and technology to prepare them to meet the challenges of the 21st century". Skynet Junior Scholars has formed a strong and growing partnership with state 4-H agencies in West Virginia and Wisconsin, with a goal of establishing SJS as a national 4-H curriculum.Skynet Junior Scholars is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers 1223687, 1223235 and 1223345
Skynet Junior Scholars: Bringing Astronomy to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth
No full textSkynet Junior Scholars (SJS), funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to engage middle school youth from diverse audiences in
investigating the universe with research quality robotic telescopes. SJS project development goals include: 1) Online access to optical and radio telescopes, data analysis tools, and professional astronomers, 2) An age-appropriate web-based interface for controlling remote telescopes, 3) Inquiry-based standards-aligned instructional modules. From an accessibility perspective, the goal of the Skynet Junior Scholars project is to facilitate independent access to the project by all youth including those with blindness or low vision and those who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) students have long been an underserved population within STEM fields, including astronomy. Two main barriers include: (1) insufficient corpus of American Sign Language (ASL) for astronomy terminology, and (2) DHH education professionals who lack astronomy background. A suite of vocabulary, accessible hands-on activities, and interaction with trained professionals, are critical for enhancing the background experiences of DHH youth, as they may come to an astronomy lesson lacking the basic "incidental learning" that is often taken for granted with hearing peers (for example, from astronomy in the media).A collaboration between the Skynet Junior Scholars (SJS) project and the Wisconsin School for the Deaf is bringing astronomy to the DHH community in an accessible way for the first time. We follow a group of seven DHH youth over one semester as they interact with the SJS tools and curriculum to understand how they assimilate astronomy experiences and benefit from access to telescopes both directly (on school campus and at Yerkes Observatory) and through Skynet's robotic telescope network (optical and radio telescopes, inquiry-based modules, data analysis tools, and professional astronomers). We report on our first findings of resources and best practices for engaging DHH youth in astronomy in the future
Learning to Explain Astronomy Across Moving Frames of Reference: Exploring the role of classroom and planetarium-based instructional contexts
No full textLearning astronomy involves significant spatial reasoning, such as learning to describe Earth-based phenomena and understanding space-based explanations for those phenomena as well as using the relevant size and scale information to interpret these frames of reference. This study examines daily celestial motion (DCM) as one case of how children learn to move between frames of reference in astronomy wherein one explains Earth-based descriptions of the Sun’s, Moon’s, and stars’ apparent motion using the Earth’s daily rotation. We analysed interviews with 8–9-year-old students (N 1⁄4 99) who participated in one of four instructional conditions emphasizing: the space- based perspective; the Earth-based perspective in the planetarium; constructing explanations for the Earth-based observations; and a combination of the planetarium plus constructing explanations in the classroom. We used an embodied cognition framework to analyse outcomes while also considering challenges learners face due to the high cognitive demands of spatial reasoning. Results support the hypothesis that instruction should engage students in learning both the Earth-based observations and space-based explanations, as focusing on a single frame of reference resulted in less sophisticated explanations; however, few students were able to construct a fully scientific explanation after instruction
Education and outreach using the falcon telescope network
No full textThe Falcon Telescope Network (FTN) is a global network of small aperture telescopes developed by the Center for Space Situational Awareness Research in the Department of Physics at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA). Consisting of commercially available equipment, the FTN is a collaborative effort between USAFA and other educational institutions ranging from two- and four-year colleges to major research universities. USAFA provides the equipment (e.g. telescope, mount, camera, filter wheel, dome, weather station, computers and storage devices) while the educational partners provide the building and infrastructure to support an observatory. The user base includes USAFA along with K-12 and higher education faculty and students. The diversity of the users implies a wide variety of observing interests, and thus the FTN collects images on diverse objects, including satellites, galactic and extragalactic objects, and objects popular for education and public outreach. The raw imagery, all in the public domain, will be accessible to FTN partners and will be archived at USAFA. Currently, there are five Falcon telescopes installed, two in Colorado and one each in Pennsylvania, Chile, and Australia. These five telescopes are in various stages of operational capability but all are remotely operable via a remote desktop application. The FTN team has conducted STEM First Light Projects for three of the U.S. observatories, soliciting proposals from middle and high school students and teachers that suggest and then become what is observed as official STEM first-light objects. Students and teachers learn how to write and submit a proposal as well as how telescopes operate and take data, while university-level students at the U.S. Air Force Academy and The Pennsylvania State University learn how to evaluate proposals and provide feedback to the middle and high school students and teachers. In this paper, we present the current status of the FTN, details of and lessons learned from the STEM First Light Project, and feedback from middle and high school students and teachers
How Students View the Boundaries Between Their Science and Religious Education Concerning the Origins of Life and the Universe
No full textInternationally in secondary schools, lessons are typically taught by subject specialists, raising the question of how to accommodate teaching which bridges the sciences and humanities. This is the first study to look at how students make sense of the teaching they receive in two subjects (science and religious education [RE]) when one subject's curriculum explicitly refers to cross-disciplinary study and the other does not. Interviews with 61 students in seven schools in England suggested that students perceive a permeable boundary between science and their learning in science lessons and also a permeable boundary between religion and their learning in RE lessons, yet perceive a firm boundary between science lessons and RE lessons. We concluded that it is unreasonable to expect students to transfer instruction about cross-disciplinary perspectives across such impermeable subject boundaries. Finally, we consider the implications of these findings for the successful management of cross-disciplinary education
Undiscovered value of grey astronomy education research results
No full textFor the teaching scholar focused on improving their astronomy class, a perfectly reasonable question to pose is, “how do I quickly learn about the best that discipline-based astronomy education research has to offer about improving teaching and learning?” Exhaustive reviews of astronomy education research (Adams & Slater, 2000; Bailey & Slater, 2003, 2005; Slater, 2008; Slater, Ratcliff, & Tatge, 2016), clearly position astronomy education research, AER, as a its own scholarly discipline existing within a rich field of robust student misconceptions and varied instructional strategies designed to intellectually engage students. Indeed, the recent publication of National Research Council publication, Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering (NRC, 2012) highlights astronomy as one of the principle disciplines of education research, elevating it to the same level as physics education research, geoscience education research, chemistry education research, engineering education research, and biology education research (listed in no particular order). Yet, if it is so important, where is all the astronomy education research
Planetarium software in the classroom
No full textStudents often note astronomy and astrophysics to be most interesting and exciting, but the Universe is difficult to access using only one’s eyes or simple equipment available at different educational settings. To open up the Universe and enhance learning astronomy and astrophysics different planetarium software can be used. In this article we discuss the usefulness of such simulation software and give four examples of how such software can be used for teaching and learning astronomy and astrophysics
Educative Curricula and PCK Development Driven by STEM Professional Learning in Rural and Remote Schools: A longitudinal Type IV Case Study
No full textScience performance overall in Australia is flat-lining. Science teachers hold the key to addressing this issue. One way to improve the effectiveness of science teachers is to improve their Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) through professional learning experiences, but doing so in the middle-school years in rural and remote settings through traditional face-to-face professional learning activities poses many challenges. Educative curricula designed to improve teachers’ science PCK as well as learning outcomes for students provide an alternative to traditional face-to-face professional learning for teachers in isolated locations. The Middle Years Astronomy Project is an example of one educative curriculum currently in use in the middle years of some rural and remote schools. The research reported here employed a Type IV multiple-case, embedded mixed-methods case study design to collect data from four remote sites in Western Australia and four rural sites in Victoria. The results of this research indicate that the educative curriculum improved teachers’ science PCK for most teachers. Reasons for this are presented. The findings also suggest that PCK development takes time and requires a planned and systematic approach to teacher career development with support from the employer. It also suggests that using educative curricula to improve the PCK of rural and remote science teachers, as well as science student learning outcomes, is a strategy worthy of pursuit
US and Turkish preschoolers’ observational knowledge of astronomy
No full textThe purpose of this cross-cultural study was to describe and compare US and Turkish children's observational knowledge of the day and night cycle and to identify similarities predicted by framework theory. Fifty-six (27 US and 29 Turkish) young children (ages 48–60 months) participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were individually conducted, digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the constant comparative method. The results demonstrate that preschoolers from the two cultures are able to make comparable informal observations of the sky, and their observational knowledge includes many similarities, with one exception, as predicted by framework theory. US children were more likely to perform better than the Turkish children on the question about the time of observation for the moon. Although science concepts and skills are better represented in US early childhood education programs than the Turkish program, the results suggest that this advantage did not translate into performance differences between US and Turkish children