Astronomy Education for the Public via Emerging Internet Technologies ICERI 2008

P. Antoniou , E. Delidou, A. Aggeioplasti, E. Kaldoudi

Thrace Amateur Astronomy Club (T.A.A.C.)

Thrace Amateur Astronomy Club (T.A.A.C.)

Founded 2004

• 3 Astronomy related speeches from distinguished invited speakers to the public

• 20 presentations at local schools

• 2 semester long projects of astronomy education for children

• Weekly member presentations of astronomical subjects to the Club’s members

• 20 Organized observations of the sky open to the public with emphasis on site accessibility

• 20 Organized observations of the sky for the members with emphasis on site quality

• Innumerable observations of the Club’s members

Target Audience: General Public

Project “Tackling astronomy, one problem at a time”

Aim: Disseminating basic astrophysics and astronomy knowledge

Interesting subject

Interesting approach

Cater for diverse participants’ Time requirements

Cater for diverse participants’ locations

Practical Requirements:

Course constraints Problem based educational paradigm

Asynchronous participation

Remote participation

objectives

support collaboration of remote astronomy experts (amateurs

and professionals) in order to devise, develop and deploy

didactic problems for problem based learning in astronomy;

deploy problem-based sessions in virtual teams, where both

students and instructors may be located in remote places;

support strong instructor’s presence in a PBL episode;

provide tools for student inquiry and collaboration;

provide mechanisms for continuous monitoring and

evaluation, that would address direct knowledge, as well as

tacit competencies targeted via PBL

Problem Based Learning (PBL)

“PBL is focused, experiential learning organized around the investigation, explanation, and resolution of meaningful problems”

Hmelo Silver, Problem-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn? Educational Psychology Review, 16; 3 (2004)

“PBL is an instructional (and curricular) learner-centered approach that empowers learners to conduct research, integrate theory and practice, and apply knowledge and skills to develop a viable solution to a defined problem. Critical to the success of the approach is the selection of ill-structured problems (often interdisciplinary) and a tutor who guides the learning process and conducts a thorough debriefing at the conclusion of the learning experience.”

J.R. Savery, Overview of Problem-based Learning: Definitions and Distinctions IJPBL, 1;1 (2006)

Components of Problem Based Learning

Learner Group

•Self directed towards learning resources

•Self regulated regarding depth and breadth of inquiry

•Collaborating to bring together diverse knowledge

•Largely independent of Teacher

Problem

•Motivating the group

•Complex in order to provide a challenge to the group

•Ill structured so as not to enforce single course of action

•Open ended in order to not have one correct answer

Facilitator

•Expert educator instead of expert in the field of knowledge

•Guides learners instead of providing knowledge

•Challenges learners to justify their thinking

•Assists in Collaboration

Problem based learning: Attractive for the public

• Learners have the responsibility for their own learning

• The ill-structured problem used in problem-based learning allows for free inquiry.

• Diverse and multidisciplinary learning experience

• PBL fosters collaboration.

• Immediate feedback from newly acquired knowledge in the form of solid answers to previously encountered unsolved questions

• PBL utilizes activities valued and carried out in the real world (research, experimentation, independent thinking, etc.)

Implementing PBL for a diverse audience

Collaboration

Facilitation

Publication

PBL requirements Audience requirements

Asynchronous participation

Site independent participation

Ease of access to resources

Ease of use of publication tools

Web 2.0 Technologies

What’s wrong with Web 1.0 ?

User as a recipient User as a contributor

Publishing Participation

Scripted content Emergent behavior

Rigid software solutions Open-ended customizable modular technologies

Software irrelevant of the user Software improved through user participation

Publishing and linking data Harnessing collective intelligence

User contribution a chore User contribution transparently aggregated

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

Web 2.0 by example

Modular open ended modifiable software Web services

P2P sharing Decentralized resources, gets better the more people use it

Google The service is the product (Web as a platform), gets better the more people use it

Blogs Reinforces participation, collaboration and community making

Wikis Reinforces participation, easily aggregates user contribution

problem based learning via web 2.0

develop educational problem in a wiki – various remote teachers can collaborate

initiate discussion via problem’s blog/forum

students search for solution/knowledge via the web (and not only)

students collaborate to solve the case via wikis

activities & progress in achieving scientific competences & skills are recorded & discussed in personal students’ blogs

teachers’ experiences are recorded & discussed in personal teachers’ blogs

problem based learning via web 2.0

wiki

– develop the problem (teacher collaboration)

– develop the solution (student collaboration)

forum

– discuss practical issues & background

– discuss/present the procedure

– discuss/analyze the problem

blog

– record/comment on personal experience

– record/comment on progress/competencies

Putting them all to work

Learning objectives: present basic concepts of astrophysics

Impressive stellar phenomena:

Supernova

Pulsars

Black holes

Through which concepts of stellar evolution emerge:

Phases of stellar evolution

End states of stars

Detection methods in modern astronomy

The Problem: Enlightening the press «As members of an amateur astronomy club in a rural area that lacks an appropriate Physics or Engineering department it has been delegated to you to be the unofficial “Press correspondence team”. That is to provide the local press with an unofficial but well informed statement regarding various astronomy related news and stories coming into the spotlight at various times.

For that reason you will be called upon to comment on several fictional news stories regarding astronomical observations and phenomena. Some of these stories will be of sound scientific basis while others will not. Your job is to comment on both, after you have formed an informed opinion through widely available research means (internet, libraries etc.). The ideal response should be concise, relatively brief, but well documented and researched. Remember that you are not considered a scientific authority on the subject so any non-obvious scientific knowledge should be adequately referenced. No specialized education or resources will be required to be able to adequately address the issues covered by the

articles. »

participants

students:

– 8 young amateur astronomers of the region of Thrace

– age: 12-24 years

tutors:

– 3 physisists, also amateur astronomers

–

participants’attitude towards the educational method prior to PBL deployment

PA

RT

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participants’attitude towards the educational method after PBL deployment

PA

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impressions Preference Difficulty Pros Cons

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participants’attitude towards web 2.0 prior to PBL deployment

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participants’attitude towards web 2.0 after PBL deployment

PA

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Helpful

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Instructions Pros Cons

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Innovation of assembly in Astronomy Education

Engaging educational instances for the public

Interesting astrophysical concepts

Problem based learning paradigm

Web 2.0 Technologies

cite as

P. Antoniou, E. Delidou, K. Aggeioplasti, and E.

Kaldoudi, “Astronomy Education for the Public via

Emerging Internet Technologies”, Proceedings of the

ICERI 2008: International Conference of Education,

Research and Innovation, Madrid, Spain, November

17-19, 2008