Example of
Practice
Presentation

Chemistry IT Workshop 16 November 1998

Computer Based Features of the Junior Astronomy Course

Professional astronomers make extensive use of Internet facilities for personal communication, exchange of data, submission of papers and even remote control of telescopes. Astronomy also has a regular flow of discoveries and amazing new images which are rapidly provided to the general public via the web. In many ways astronomers have been among the leaders in scientific use of the web. Against this background we offered a new Junior Astronomy course (PHYS 1500) for the first time in July semester 1998.

In preparation for the course we surveyed web offerings of Astronomy courses elsewhere in the world. Most of these occur in the USA where Astronomy courses for non-science majors are popular, although a number of Australian universities now also offer Astronomy as part of a science degree. In general, the results from searching the web were disappointing. Many courses offer basic information, while some provide features like assignments on-line. Few use the web to offer anything very innovative, although it is worth noting that Swinburne University will be offering Astronomy Online from 1999.

The Sydney Astronomy course was designed to serve a broad group of students ranging from those taking Advanced Junior Physics to Arts and Education students with no Physics background. Of about 135 students, only about half had any university Physics background. As a result, we deliberately set out to broaden the delivery modes so that it did not look like a "normal" Physics course, which many students find intimidating. We also decided to trial some new features - some of them computer based and some new to the School of Physics. The resulting course had several elements:

lectures, but fewer than a usual Physics course;

"workshops" including guest lecturers discussing relevant, but non-examinable, topics;

tutorials based on group discussion and led by teams of students;

labs presenting realistic data based on computer simulation of real observing;

real observing time, both day and night; and

an essay, but no other formal assignments.

Course information on the web

Extensive course information was provided on the course web page (http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/ugrad/astro.html) which mirrored the content of the usual printed course booklet, while adding some useful web links. The page presentation was designed by NeTTL. Web pages were also used to provide on-line registration and quizzes during laboratory class sessions.

We found a range in "comfort levels" in using the web. Many students happily sought out information on the web while a few were noticeably reticent. We encouraged the latter by showing them how to proceed during spare time in the computer labs. They were all required to use web resources for the major essay which provided starting points for all topics in the form of both a paper article and a suggested web link.

Email was used as a second line of communication with the 60% of students who volunteered their email address. This was especially useful in re-scheduling night time observing sessions when the weather was poor. A few of the students reciprocated and sought course information by email, but the offer of an email AstroTutor was never really taken up.

Computer based laboratory

A laboratory component poses a problem for astronomy courses and is often not attempted. Most data gathering in astronomy is done at night and the data must often be processed quite carefully to get useful results. Our own experience with a computer based experiment in the intermediate Physics laboratory had demonstrated that the detail can easily cloud the essence of the exercise.

We were fortunate that Gettysburg College in the US has produced a set of computer exercises called Contemporary Laboratory Experiences in Astronomy (CLEA) (http://www.gettysburg.edu/project/physics/clea/CLEAhome.html). These simulate the data gathering and processing of real observing with optical and radio telescopes, right down to sometimes needing to submit a request for time on a larger telescope and being refused (or clouded out)! The interface features simple telescope controls to point and track the targets and a variety of instruments suited to each exercise.

We presented five of the CLEA exercises using computers of the Open Access Lab in the Education Building. The subjects were chosen to illustrate how the astronomy described in lectures is actually done. They were timed to be done after the relevant theoretical background had been presented in the lectures. Student response to the CLEA exercises was very good and, in presenting another learning experience which cannot easily be provided in another way, they illustrate an effective use of computers in teaching.

Obviously a computer simulation is limited in its realism, but it formed a useful pairing with the "real" observing using the School of Physics telescope. Actually using a real telescope, both by day and night, proved to be very popular despite the organisational problems caused by cloud. Clearly, there is nothing quite like the real thing!

Another option which we considered but have not yet pursued is the ability to use a telescope across the world via the web to do night observing during our day. Such "remote observing" may be a feature of future courses as more suitably equipped telescopes become available.

Web-based discussion forum

The tutorial component of the Astronomy course was intended to broaden the students view of the lecture material. For example, in discussing the importance of asteroid and comet impacts in shaping the surface of planets and moons in the solar system, the question naturally arises of impacts also influencing the evolution of life on Earth. This in turn leads to questions such as "Should Australia be spending money on programs to detect near-Earth objects which may potentially strike the Earth in the future?".

Each tutorial was integrated with a web-based Discussion Forum provided by NeTTL and accessed from the Astronomy course web page. Each week a starting posting was made by the course coordinator to promote discussion before the tutorial. Each tutorial was then led by a team of students who made an introductory presentation during the tutorial and were then required to post a summary of the discussion in their tutorial to the web Discussion Forum.

The close integration of the tutorials and Discussion Forum worked well early in the semester, but usage tapered off later. Student attendance at tutorials remained quite good, but clearly we need to encourage people (beyond the lead team each week) to see the Discussion Forum as important to the whole exercise.

WebMCQ

Near the end of the course we made available a large set of sample multiple choice questions using WebMCQ (http://webmcq.com.au/ - "astronomy" question set). The questions were intended as a review exercise for the students and we encouraged their interest by promising to draw the multiple choice component of the exam from the questions presented on the web.

WebMCQ has the advantage over some similar packages (which have been used by Physics) that it is web-based and therefore accessible to students from any computer with web access. Many students did access it from home but, concerned with equity of access, we provided time in our computer labs for students to work through the questions. Student responses on questionnaires indicated that this was popular and useful as a review of the course material before the examination. The questions certainly probed the understanding and knowledge of some of the staff as well as the students!

Conclusion

Student responses to the new Astronomy course, both verbally and on several questionnaires, was very favourable. In part this is because of the fascinating and up-to-date nature of the subject, but they also appreciated the effort to diversify the range of presentation. Results at the final examination were good and an entry/exit misconceptions quiz showed a noticeable increase in correct responses.

Each of the initiatives described above was relatively modest by itself. We did not develop anything dramatically new but attempted to put several elements together into a new and attractive package. The idea was to present a good course, but without consuming excessive resources. We appear to have succeeded quite well and hope the good student response will be reflected in another strong enrolment when the course is offered again, with only relatively minor fine tuning, in the July semester 1999.

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge the involvement of other members of the School of Physics in designing the Junior Astronomy course, in particular the following staff - Tim Bedding, Anne Green, Richard Hunstead and Mark Wardle - and various postgraduate students.

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