GOALS FOR “ASTRO 101:”
REPORT ON A WORKSHOP FOR ASTRONOMY DEPARTMENT LEADERS
by
Bruce Partridge,
Education
Officer of the AAS
and
George Greenstein,
ABSTRACT
Workshops on the teaching of
introductory astronomy were recently held for astronomy department chairs and
other leaders at selected major research universities. We report here on the
list of goals for such courses drawn up by the participants.
Each
year, astronomers are involved in teaching introductory astronomy courses
(which we will call “Astro 101”) to approximately 200,000 undergraduates in the
Our
community, however, has not established, or even widely discussed, goals for
such courses. Rather, since “Astro 101” is so widespread, it is assumed that
everyone will teach it in his or her own way. Indeed, we often teach in just
the way we experienced our own education. This represents a sadly missed
opportunity, for in recent years many exciting new pedagogical strategies and
resources have been developed. Studies of introductory courses in related
disciplines (e.g., Laws, 1997; Redish and Steinberg, 1999; Crouch and Mazur,
2001; see also the useful Web site www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/cl1)
have identified a number of strategies which increase student learning within
the standard, large-lecture format used in most Astro 101 classes.. These
strategies pertain both to textbooks and to course syllabi, both of which
traditionally tend to emphasize complete coverage rather than deep
understanding. Given both the large
enrollments in Astro 101 and the emergence of educational scholarship that
could influence and improve such courses, a reexamination of the goals of Astro
101 seemed warranted.
In response to this need, the
Education Office of the AAS instituted a two-pronged approach to examining,
reforming and improving Astro 101.
·
Assistance to those actually teaching Astro 101. An
ongoing series of workshops are being held in which new astronomy faculty are
exposed to new pedagogical strategies and resources. These workshops are run
jointly with the APS, and supported by an NSF grant. In addition, at each AAS
meeting, the AAS Education Office sponsors a day-long or half-day meeting
focused on Astro 101. We have also joined with the ASP to sponsor the biennial
“Cosmos in the Classroom” meeting which reaches many 101 instructors in
community colleges.
·
Workshops for Department Chairs. Two such
workshops have been held for Chairs and other department leaders from selected
major research universities. Our rationale for this choice was that if any
departments play a leadership role in the astronomical community, it is these.
If their teaching practices are systemically reviewed and improved, it is more
likely that those in two- and four-year colleges will follow suit than the
reverse. Furthermore, writers and publishers of textbooks are more likely to
pay attention to systemic reforms at such large and influential institutions.
The workshops involved three dozen participants from 30 institutions (listed
below). They were supported by NSF grant DUE9952353, and hosted by the
The goals
of the workshops for department leaders were to foster conversations among the
participants on the difficulties encountered and the strategies they employed
in mounting their departments’ Astro 101 offerings, to expose them to a series
of reports from education experts, and to ask the participants to formulate
sets of recommended goals and a
longer list of useful strategies for
such courses for later review by and dissemination to the wider astronomical
community.
Why do we teach introductory
astronomy to non-science majors, and what do we want our students to take away
with them at the end of the semester? After considerable discussion, the
workshop participants attempted to formulate responses to these questions, in
the form of a set of recommended goals for “Astro 101.” Remarkably, the goals
adopted by the two workshops turned out to be quite similar. (This was in spite
of the fact that participants in the second workshop did not see the goals proposed
by the first until after they had adopted their own.)
I GOALS
(CONTENT)
Students should gain:
·
a cosmic perspective -- a broad understanding of the
nature, scope and evolution of the Universe, and where the Earth and Solar
System fit in
·
an understanding of a limited number of crucial
astronomical quantities together with some knowledge of appropriate physical
laws
·
the notion that physical laws and processes are
universal
·
the notion that the world is knowable, and that we
are coming to know it through observations, experiments and theory (the nature
of progress in science)
·
exposure to the types, roles and degrees of
uncertainty in science
·
an understanding of the evolution of physical systems
·
some knowledge of related subjects (e.g., gravity and
spectra from physics) and a set of useful “tools” from related subjects such as
mathematics
·
an acquaintance with the history of astronomy and the
evolution of scientific ideas (science as a cultural process)
·
familiarity with the night sky and how its appearance
changes with time and position on Earth.
II GOALS (SKILLS, VALUES AND ATTITUDES)
1) Students should be exposed to:
·
the excitement of actually doing science
·
the evolution of scientific ideas (science as a
cultural process).
2) Students should be introduced to how science progresses, and
receive training in:
·
the roles of observations, experiments, theory and
models
·
analyzing evidence and hypotheses
·
critical thinking (including appropriate skepticism)
·
hypothesis testing (experimental design and following
the implications of a model)
·
quantitative reasoning (and the ability to make
reasonable estimates)
·
the role of uncertainty and error in science
·
how to make and use spatial/geometrical models.
3) And
we should leave students
·
more confident of their own critical faculties
·
inspired about science in general and astronomy in
particular
·
Interested in, and better equipped to follow,
scientific arguments in the media.
These goals are explained more fully
in the body of this report, where illustrative examples are given for each.
We are struck by what the
participants did not do: they made no
attempt to design a curriculum, or to propose a detailed set of standards for
Astro 101. Rather, the content goals they adopted are very general. As opposed
to urging us all to teach the HR diagram, they called for “an understanding of
a limited number of crucial astronomical quantities.” Furthermore, they made no
attempt to define what these quantities should be. Rather, their sense was that
every instructor was free to define this for him- or herself. Indeed, both
workshops rejected the notion of an irreducible core of essential knowledge, to
which every Astro 101 student should be exposed. This is in interesting
contrast to findings by Brissenden et al.
(1999) who polled current Astro 101 instructors and listed goals ranging from
“an appreciation of the size scale and structure of the cosmos” to “the stellar
magnitude scale” as key learning goals.
Associated with this was a sense
that “Less is More.” Participants rejected the notion that Astro 101 ought to
survey the entire field of astronomy. Indeed, they felt that tightly focused
courses (“The Search for Extraterrestrial Life,” “The Expanding Universe”) might prove as
educational – and more interesting, both to the students and to the instructor
– than the traditional survey course. If the general notion of a survey is
retained, participants felt that instructors should focus on a limited number
of important themes in astronomy, such as the evolution of physical systems or
“how we know what we know.”
A third important issue is that many
of the Goals adopted were quite general, and referred to broad aspects of the
scientific enterprise. While astronomy majors might need to understand the HR
diagram or the CNO cycle, a goal such as “students should understand that
physical laws and processes are universal” was deemed more important for Astro
101 courses. Similarly, many of the adopted goals concern skills and attitudes
rather than content: participants called for “training in critical thinking,
including appropriate skepticism.”
The set of goals adopted by the
workshops has broad implications for how we teach our Astro 101 students.
Many of the goals go far beyond what
is customarily taught in such courses. How, for instance, are we to teach “that
physical laws and processes are universal?” We are all used to teaching the
latest observational data on Mars – but we are not used to teaching why we
believe that F=ma is just as valid on Mars as it is on Earth. While we know how
to teach about the expanding universe, how would we go about teaching “that the
world is knowable?”
Other goals address our students’
skills, values and attitudes. Here too, the workshops are asking us to alter
our traditional modes of instruction. Do our current Astro 101 courses give our
students “training in critical thinking, including appropriate skepticism,” or
in “the analysis of evidence and hypotheses?”
Similar
comments apply to the textbooks we write and adopt. Most workshop participants
were united in decrying the tendency of textbooks to cover every imaginable
topic. Participants were also united, however, in understanding the reasons for
this tendency. Only when we as teachers cease demanding that textbooks cover
every one of our own favorite topics will textbooks start shrinking and
focusing.
Finally,
these goals require us to alter our techniques of assessing our students.
Students are very good at “reading our actions,” and seeing through what might
be empty pieties. No matter how we revise our courses and reorder our goals, if
our homework sets and exams continue to cover only factual material, students
will understand full well where their efforts should go.
These are
not problems the workshops solved. While the participants did suggest a range
of potentially useful strategies, no consensus was reached on any one of them,
and no particular priority was assigned to them. The department leaders at the
two meetings recognized that the set of goals they adopted pose a substantial
challenge to the entire community of astronomers. It will take much debate both
within departments and at future meetings the AAS intends to sponsor, to
formulate how to respond appropriately to the new view of Astro 101 embodied in
these goals.
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