Instructor: John Percy
percy@astro.utoronto.ca
Education is important to astronomy, both to attract and train the next generation of astronomers, and to increase awareness, understanding, and appreciation of astronomy among the taxpayers and decision-makers who support us.
Every graduate student has spent the majority of their life as part of the education system, and therefore has extensive experience in this field!
Many graduate students will go on to professorial careers in which a significant fraction of their time is devoted to education; they will receive little or no training for this part of their work. Other graduate students will go on to purely research careers but, especially in the US, education and outreach activities will be encouraged. Grants for education projects are available from NSF, NASA and other sources. Still other graduate students may go on to careers outside academe, in which case some "training" in education may be an asset. A few may actually take up careers in teaching, planetariums or science centres etc. Every astronomer should regard education as part of their field. And every astronomer - as a citizen and taxpayer - should regard education as an important aspect of life.
Much astronomy education can be demonstrated to be inefficient and/or ineffective; we are all guilty of this from time to time. Yet there is a significant body of information available on good astronomy education, in the research literature, and in high-level conference proceedings. This will be the resource material for this mini-course.
Astronomy education extends from K-12 in the school system, through undergraduate and graduate school, to "lifelong learning" through informal or public education. This takes place through many channels, and is a strong influence on both students and the general public. It will not be possible to deal with all this material in depth in 8 contact hours, but it will be touched upon through reading and introductory lectures. These will deal particularly with research results, methodological approaches which have worked elsewhere, partnerships with other professions such as teaching, museum studies, the mass media etc. The subsequent emphasis will be on the following timely and relevant topics: (1) school curriculum reform; (2) effective undergraduate teaching and learning, especially for non-major students; (3) current developments in the funding of facilities such as planetariums, science centres, and public observatories, including partnerships and entrepreneurship; and (4) international development of astronomy. The exact topics covered will depend very much on how many students (and postdocs, and faculty) participate in the course.
This depends, to some extent, on how many students take the course for credit, or audit "actively". Ideally, if there are 5-10 participants, they will work, in groups of 3 to 5, on specific projects or case studies. Each participant will work on one or two projects, perhaps contributing to the final project report in one, and refereeing the other - we need to think this out. There will be a final interview (or "oral exam") for each student taking the course for credit. The emphasis will be on introducing students to the literature, and to methodologies which have been demonstrated to be effective. Possible projects include:
Textbook:"Astronomy Education: Current Developments, Future
Coordination" ed. John R. Percy, ASP Conf. Series 89, 1996;
particularly the articles by Percy, Fraknoi, Sadler, Ahlgren,
and the reports of small-group discussions.