Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v8i1.10389
Sara K. Schultz, T. Slater
Planetariums were created to teach astronomy by simulating motions of the star-filled night sky; however, simply having a virtual reality facility to immerse learners beneath a projected night sky in and of itself is insufficient to automatically ensure student learning occurs. Modern teaching strategies, like active learning, have consistently shown to move students toward deeper understanding in classrooms; yet, active learning approaches seem to be only rarely observed in planetariums. Use of Ruiz-Primo and Furtak’s (2006) coding scheme to define and analyze formative assessment conversations between classroom teachers and students reveals that unless teachers are formally taught how to use formative assessment-based active learning, such approaches are largely absent in classrooms studied. The goal of this 2-phase study was to evaluate the nature of active learning-based formative assessment conversation cycles in the planetarium. The first phase systematically analyzes 26 recordings of live planetarium programs to describe and document presence of active learning teaching strategies. The second phase conducts interviews to determine rewards and barriers to using formative assessment-based active learning in the planetarium. Analysis suggests scant evidence of complete formative assessment conversation cycles, despite that varying degrees of interactivity between the planetarium lecturer and the audience do exist. It is not that planetariansdon’t ask questions, but responses rarely serve to systematically guide instructional decisions aligned with modern pedagogy. Moreover, these planetarians hold a wide range of definitions of what constitutes active learning and often view their primary responsibility as inspiration rather than education, lending explanatory power to why active learning is largely absent.
{"title":"Use Of Formative Assessment-Based Active Learning By Astronomy Educators Teaching In Live Planetarium Learning Environments","authors":"Sara K. Schultz, T. Slater","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v8i1.10389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v8i1.10389","url":null,"abstract":"Planetariums were created to teach astronomy by simulating motions of the star-filled night sky; however, simply having a virtual reality facility to immerse learners beneath a projected night sky in and of itself is insufficient to automatically ensure student learning occurs. Modern teaching strategies, like active learning, have consistently shown to move students toward deeper understanding in classrooms; yet, active learning approaches seem to be only rarely observed in planetariums. Use of Ruiz-Primo and Furtak’s (2006) coding scheme to define and analyze formative assessment conversations between classroom teachers and students reveals that unless teachers are formally taught how to use formative assessment-based active learning, such approaches are largely absent in classrooms studied. The goal of this 2-phase study was to evaluate the nature of active learning-based formative assessment conversation cycles in the planetarium. The first phase systematically analyzes 26 recordings of live planetarium programs to describe and document presence of active learning teaching strategies. The second phase conducts interviews to determine rewards and barriers to using formative assessment-based active learning in the planetarium. Analysis suggests scant evidence of complete formative assessment conversation cycles, despite that varying degrees of interactivity between the planetarium lecturer and the audience do exist. It is not that planetariansdon’t ask questions, but responses rarely serve to systematically guide instructional decisions aligned with modern pedagogy. Moreover, these planetarians hold a wide range of definitions of what constitutes active learning and often view their primary responsibility as inspiration rather than education, lending explanatory power to why active learning is largely absent.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87825845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-06-01DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v8i1.10391
Ariel E. Cohen
In recent years, the astronomy teaching community has been called upon to include more cultural aspects of the influence of astronomy across the world in university courses. As an important component connecting the science of predictable sky alignments with historical human events, students studying the history of science and astronomy often find it cognitively challenging to recognize the fact that till the 16th century AD the most fundamental picture of the planetary system had been distorted with the sun considered to be the fourth planet of the earth rather than the center of our modern planetary system. Similarly, students are often amazed in realizing that the vast majority of all professional and knowledgeable astronomers had also believed that planets control the destiny of all human beings,and, in particular, in predicting extreme events. In this presentation, we concentrate on such impacts of astronomers who stood behind the determination of the chronology of the Bible. Having illustrated that the ancient astronomers believed that when the Sun, the Moon, and the first point of Aries form a straight celestial line, important historical events described in the Bible could be revealed, and one could systematically examine the relative positions of these three celestial objects when events would occur and symbolize for the sages the end of an era. We first describe how the largest celestial separation between the sun, the moon, and the Vernal Equinox (VE) was identified by the writers of the chronology to occur in association with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple; and then we illustrate the additional result that such a separation was also made to be associated with a biblical flood.
{"title":"Using Astronomical References For Biblical Dating Of Noah’s Deluge And The Destruction Of Solomon’s Temple","authors":"Ariel E. Cohen","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v8i1.10391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v8i1.10391","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, the astronomy teaching community has been called upon to include more cultural aspects of the influence of astronomy across the world in university courses. As an important component connecting the science of predictable sky alignments with historical human events, students studying the history of science and astronomy often find it cognitively challenging to recognize the fact that till the 16th century AD the most fundamental picture of the planetary system had been distorted with the sun considered to be the fourth planet of the earth rather than the center of our modern planetary system. Similarly, students are often amazed in realizing that the vast majority of all professional and knowledgeable astronomers had also believed that planets control the destiny of all human beings,and, in particular, in predicting extreme events. In this presentation, we concentrate on such impacts of astronomers who stood behind the determination of the chronology of the Bible. Having illustrated that the ancient astronomers believed that when the Sun, the Moon, and the first point of Aries form a straight celestial line, important historical events described in the Bible could be revealed, and one could systematically examine the relative positions of these three celestial objects when events would occur and symbolize for the sages the end of an era. We first describe how the largest celestial separation between the sun, the moon, and the Vernal Equinox (VE) was identified by the writers of the chronology to occur in association with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple; and then we illustrate the additional result that such a separation was also made to be associated with a biblical flood.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87863152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v7i1.10354
L. Arthurs, Chelsie M. Kowalski, Justin M. Elwonger
Communicating even fundamental scientific concepts can be challenging. Furthermore, student mental models are often difficult to uncover even by the most talented teacher or researcher. Drawing is a universal process skill widely used by scientists to refine their conceptions about a wide range of topics, communicate ideas, and advance scientific thought in their disciplines. Just as drawing is useful to scientists for refining their conceptions, it has the potential to be useful for revealing misconceptions when teaching from a conceptual change perspective of science students’ mental models. Using a design study methodology and framed within the knowledge integration perspective of conceptual change, this longitudinal study investigates the efficacy of a delimited-sketch activity on the conceptual change of novices’ mental models about groundwater residence. A delimited-sketch activity, the focal case of this study, involves (i) students drawing to expand upon a provided partially-drawn concept sketch and then (ii) collectively debriefing the ideas communicated in the completed student-expanded concept sketches. The activity’s efficacy at facilitating conceptual change is tested with two different sample populations at two different large public universities in the USA. The first population is drawn from an introductory-level college geoscience course designed for non-science majors and the second population is drawn from a similar course designed for science majors. The activity has a large significant impact on moving students away from novice-like toward more expert-like conceptions of groundwater residence. The impact is observed even two months after the activity concludes.
{"title":"Drawing As A Method To Facilitate Conceptual Change In Earth Sciences Education","authors":"L. Arthurs, Chelsie M. Kowalski, Justin M. Elwonger","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v7i1.10354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v7i1.10354","url":null,"abstract":"Communicating even fundamental scientific concepts can be challenging. Furthermore, student mental models are often difficult to uncover even by the most talented teacher or researcher. Drawing is a universal process skill widely used by scientists to refine their conceptions about a wide range of topics, communicate ideas, and advance scientific thought in their disciplines. Just as drawing is useful to scientists for refining their conceptions, it has the potential to be useful for revealing misconceptions when teaching from a conceptual change perspective of science students’ mental models. Using a design study methodology and framed within the knowledge integration perspective of conceptual change, this longitudinal study investigates the efficacy of a delimited-sketch activity on the conceptual change of novices’ mental models about groundwater residence. A delimited-sketch activity, the focal case of this study, involves (i) students drawing to expand upon a provided partially-drawn concept sketch and then (ii) collectively debriefing the ideas communicated in the completed student-expanded concept sketches. The activity’s efficacy at facilitating conceptual change is tested with two different sample populations at two different large public universities in the USA. The first population is drawn from an introductory-level college geoscience course designed for non-science majors and the second population is drawn from a similar course designed for science majors. The activity has a large significant impact on moving students away from novice-like toward more expert-like conceptions of groundwater residence. The impact is observed even two months after the activity concludes.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81242468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-01DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v7i1.10356
Ariel Cohen
The connections between astronomy and timekeeping are longstanding. One approach to the teaching of Astronomy is it can serve as a unique platform to illustrate the advancement of science from ancient times along with the strong interrelation between science and religion. Here we chose to describe the influence of astronomical measurements that led to the determination of calendars with emphasis on the Islamic epoch: During the second century the Ethiopian Church placed the world’s year of creation (YOC) at exactly 5500 years before the Incarnation, thus expressing the view that it is related to the first day of the second half of the sixth millennium since their believed to be the YOC. The Ethiopian Church also believed that the astronomical visualization of the sky in the YOC which placed the vernal equinox and the newmoon in the same day, repeated itself in the year 5500. In a previous work we showed that “Astronomical coincidence" is a notion originated from Jews who believed that the YOC, Exodus, and the building of the Temple were mystically connected by similar rare newmoon events relative to the vernal equinox. Here we show that the founders of Islam believed in a similar mystical coincidence, explicitly that the 16th of July, 622 AD,- the epoch of the Islamic calendar-, is exactly the day in which the 6000th lunar year started after the biblical creation based on the number of solar years from creation as determined by Eusebius. We show that our astronomical calculations are in accordance with a tradition mentioned by Abu al-Fadl and Badauni.
{"title":"The Mystical Correspondence Between The Epoch Of The Hijra And The Biblical Year Of Creation Supported By A Tradition Mentioned By Abu Al-Fadl And Abd Al-Qadir Baduni","authors":"Ariel Cohen","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v7i1.10356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v7i1.10356","url":null,"abstract":"The connections between astronomy and timekeeping are longstanding. One approach to the teaching of Astronomy is it can serve as a unique platform to illustrate the advancement of science from ancient times along with the strong interrelation between science and religion. Here we chose to describe the influence of astronomical measurements that led to the determination of calendars with emphasis on the Islamic epoch: During the second century the Ethiopian Church placed the world’s year of creation (YOC) at exactly 5500 years before the Incarnation, thus expressing the view that it is related to the first day of the second half of the sixth millennium since their believed to be the YOC. The Ethiopian Church also believed that the astronomical visualization of the sky in the YOC which placed the vernal equinox and the newmoon in the same day, repeated itself in the year 5500. In a previous work we showed that “Astronomical coincidence\" is a notion originated from Jews who believed that the YOC, Exodus, and the building of the Temple were mystically connected by similar rare newmoon events relative to the vernal equinox. Here we show that the founders of Islam believed in a similar mystical coincidence, explicitly that the 16th of July, 622 AD,- the epoch of the Islamic calendar-, is exactly the day in which the 6000th lunar year started after the biblical creation based on the number of solar years from creation as determined by Eusebius. We show that our astronomical calculations are in accordance with a tradition mentioned by Abu al-Fadl and Badauni.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77700560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-01DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v6i2.10338
Ned Ladd, Katharyn Nottis, P. Udomprasert
As computer-based visualization techniques are becoming more important across the landscape of astronomy education, this pre-test/post-test study using the Size, Scale, and Structure Concept Inventory (S3CI) looked at the impact of using a hybrid combination of hands-on and computer-based activities on the learning of five semesters of non-science majoring undergraduates learning about the concept of astronomical parallax. The hybrid laboratory activity comprises an outdoor component where students use the parallax method to determine the distances to nearby objects, and a computer visualization component using the American Astronomical Society’s WorldWide Telescope astronomical visualization software. This activity was implemented as part of an undergraduate astronomy course for non-science majors. Based on an analysis of student responses, we conclude that this activity can help students understand the parallax method as applied in the astronomical realm. However, even after instruction, students had difficulty recognizing this method as the primary means for determining distances in astronomy.
{"title":"A Hybrid Hands-On And Computer Simulation Laboratory Activity For The Teaching Of Astronomical Parallax","authors":"Ned Ladd, Katharyn Nottis, P. Udomprasert","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v6i2.10338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v6i2.10338","url":null,"abstract":"As computer-based visualization techniques are becoming more important across the landscape of astronomy education, this pre-test/post-test study using the Size, Scale, and Structure Concept Inventory (S3CI) looked at the impact of using a hybrid combination of hands-on and computer-based activities on the learning of five semesters of non-science majoring undergraduates learning about the concept of astronomical parallax. The hybrid laboratory activity comprises an outdoor component where students use the parallax method to determine the distances to nearby objects, and a computer visualization component using the American Astronomical Society’s WorldWide Telescope astronomical visualization software. This activity was implemented as part of an undergraduate astronomy course for non-science majors. Based on an analysis of student responses, we conclude that this activity can help students understand the parallax method as applied in the astronomical realm. However, even after instruction, students had difficulty recognizing this method as the primary means for determining distances in astronomy.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42174802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-16DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v6i1.10287
T. Slater
In this era of Internet-based, open-access journals, the careful construction of a powerful conclusion section is vital to publishing an influential and highly cited paper. The most compelling opening paragraphs for the conclusion section clearly provides: (i) the overarching question that the study is trying to answer; (ii) a simplified statement about the method used to gather evidence; (iii) an unambiguously clear answer to the research question; (iv) a paragraph about why we as a community should care about these results; and (v) a specific listing of what the next fruitful steps are needed by the broader research community. By following this simply five-step formula, authors are much more likely to provide readers—and peer reviewers—with a compelling conclusion section that results in a more frequently cited and widely influential paper.
{"title":"Editors Note: Your Article Benefits From A Compelling Conclusion","authors":"T. Slater","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v6i1.10287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v6i1.10287","url":null,"abstract":"In this era of Internet-based, open-access journals, the careful construction of a powerful conclusion section is vital to publishing an influential and highly cited paper. The most compelling opening paragraphs for the conclusion section clearly provides: (i) the overarching question that the study is trying to answer; (ii) a simplified statement about the method used to gather evidence; (iii) an unambiguously clear answer to the research question; (iv) a paragraph about why we as a community should care about these results; and (v) a specific listing of what the next fruitful steps are needed by the broader research community. By following this simply five-step formula, authors are much more likely to provide readers—and peer reviewers—with a compelling conclusion section that results in a more frequently cited and widely influential paper.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44188041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-01DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v6i1.10288
Pierre Chastenay, Martin Riopel
Based on the results of an online survey of 500 Québec’s elementary (K-6) teachers conducted in 2015 that probed the way respondents teach astronomy to their classrooms, their background in S&T, their pre-service education, their aims and goals for astronomy teaching, their attitude toward teaching astronomy, the resources and materials they use, their view on the effectiveness of pre- and in-service training, and their need for in-service training, we present a logistic regression model comparing elementary teachers in our survey that teach astronomy to their class (“Astronomy” teachers, N = 244) and those who don’t (“Non-astronomy” teachers, N = 256), to reveal factors that seem to facilitate or hinder astronomy teaching in Québec’s elementary classrooms. Based on the model, several ways to enhance the teaching of astronomy in Québec’s K-6 classrooms are proposed: offer high-quality pre- and in-service training in astronomy to elementary teachers, raise the profile of science teaching in elementary schools, and help teachers realize the importance of teaching astronomy in their classrooms to cover the curriculum standards.
{"title":"A Logistic Regression Model Comparing Astronomy And Non-Astronomy Teachers In Québec’s Elementary Schools","authors":"Pierre Chastenay, Martin Riopel","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v6i1.10288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v6i1.10288","url":null,"abstract":"Based on the results of an online survey of 500 Québec’s elementary (K-6) teachers conducted in 2015 that probed the way respondents teach astronomy to their classrooms, their background in S&T, their pre-service education, their aims and goals for astronomy teaching, their attitude toward teaching astronomy, the resources and materials they use, their view on the effectiveness of pre- and in-service training, and their need for in-service training, we present a logistic regression model comparing elementary teachers in our survey that teach astronomy to their class (“Astronomy” teachers, N = 244) and those who don’t (“Non-astronomy” teachers, N = 256), to reveal factors that seem to facilitate or hinder astronomy teaching in Québec’s elementary classrooms. Based on the model, several ways to enhance the teaching of astronomy in Québec’s K-6 classrooms are proposed: offer high-quality pre- and in-service training in astronomy to elementary teachers, raise the profile of science teaching in elementary schools, and help teachers realize the importance of teaching astronomy in their classrooms to cover the curriculum standards.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48404097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-12-04DOI: 10.19030/jaese.v5i2.10221
Pierre Chastenay
To determine the extent of astronomy teaching in Quebec’s schools, we conducted an online survey of 500 Québec’s elementary (K-6) teachers between January and March 2015. With a 35-items questionnaire, we wanted to find out how these elementary teachers teach astronomy (or not) to their classrooms, what is their background in Science & Technology (S&T), what pre-service education they received, the reasons why they teach astronomy or not to their students, the resources and materials they have at their disposal, their perception of the effectiveness of pre- and in-service training they received, and their perceived needs for in-service training. Results show that the majority of teachers surveyed didn’t study science beyond high school and have had no experience in S&T employment before becoming a teacher. We also found that only half of the teachers surveyed actually teach astronomy to their class, mostly by using reading and writing material, and that 39% of “Astronomy teachers” in our sample teach astronomy to their class between 6 and 10 hours per year. Major hurdles to astronomy teaching perceived by the teachers in our survey are a lack of experience and training in astronomy, a lack of resources and equipment, inadequate classroom arrangement, and their own, self-perceived incompetence in astronomy. Pre-service education in astronomy, in science and in science teaching is also considered mainly unsatisfactory, or non-existent in the case of astronomy; in-service training in astronomy is mainly composed of conversations with colleagues. Most respondents thus consider in-service training in astronomy to be inefficient or inexistent.
{"title":"To Teach Or Not To Teach Astronomy, That Is The Question: Results Of A Survey Of Québec’s Elementary Teachers","authors":"Pierre Chastenay","doi":"10.19030/jaese.v5i2.10221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/jaese.v5i2.10221","url":null,"abstract":"To determine the extent of astronomy teaching in Quebec’s schools, we conducted an online survey of 500 Québec’s elementary (K-6) teachers between January and March 2015. With a 35-items questionnaire, we wanted to find out how these elementary teachers teach astronomy (or not) to their classrooms, what is their background in Science & Technology (S&T), what pre-service education they received, the reasons why they teach astronomy or not to their students, the resources and materials they have at their disposal, their perception of the effectiveness of pre- and in-service training they received, and their perceived needs for in-service training. Results show that the majority of teachers surveyed didn’t study science beyond high school and have had no experience in S&T employment before becoming a teacher. We also found that only half of the teachers surveyed actually teach astronomy to their class, mostly by using reading and writing material, and that 39% of “Astronomy teachers” in our sample teach astronomy to their class between 6 and 10 hours per year. Major hurdles to astronomy teaching perceived by the teachers in our survey are a lack of experience and training in astronomy, a lack of resources and equipment, inadequate classroom arrangement, and their own, self-perceived incompetence in astronomy. Pre-service education in astronomy, in science and in science teaching is also considered mainly unsatisfactory, or non-existent in the case of astronomy; in-service training in astronomy is mainly composed of conversations with colleagues. Most respondents thus consider in-service training in astronomy to be inefficient or inexistent.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46624882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-12-04DOI: 10.19030/JAESE.V5I2.10219
Rachel M. Atkins, K. McNeal
Communicating climate information is challenging due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topic along with compounding cognitive and affective learning challenges. Graphs are a common representation used by scientists to communicate evidence of climate change. However, it is important to identify how and why individuals on the continuum of expertise navigate graphical data differently as this has implications for effective communication of this information. We collected and analyzed eye-tracking metrics of geoscience graduate students and novice undergraduate students while viewing graphs displaying climate information. Our findings indicate that during fact-extraction tasks, novice undergraduates focus proportionally more attention on the question, title and axes graph elements, whereas geoscience graduate students spend proportionally more time viewing and interpreting data. This same finding was enhanced during extrapolation tasks. Undergraduate novices were also more likely to describe general trends, while graduate students identified more specific patterns. Undergraduates who performed high on the pre-test measuring graphing skill, viewed graphs more similar to graduate students than their peers who performed lower on the pre-test.
{"title":"Exploring Differences Among Student Populations During Climate Graph Reading Tasks: An Eye Tracking Study","authors":"Rachel M. Atkins, K. McNeal","doi":"10.19030/JAESE.V5I2.10219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.19030/JAESE.V5I2.10219","url":null,"abstract":"Communicating climate information is challenging due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topic along with compounding cognitive and affective learning challenges. Graphs are a common representation used by scientists to communicate evidence of climate change. However, it is important to identify how and why individuals on the continuum of expertise navigate graphical data differently as this has implications for effective communication of this information. We collected and analyzed eye-tracking metrics of geoscience graduate students and novice undergraduate students while viewing graphs displaying climate information. Our findings indicate that during fact-extraction tasks, novice undergraduates focus proportionally more attention on the question, title and axes graph elements, whereas geoscience graduate students spend proportionally more time viewing and interpreting data. This same finding was enhanced during extrapolation tasks. Undergraduate novices were also more likely to describe general trends, while graduate students identified more specific patterns. Undergraduates who performed high on the pre-test measuring graphing skill, viewed graphs more similar to graduate students than their peers who performed lower on the pre-test.","PeriodicalId":52014,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49338829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-12-04DOI: 10.19030/JAESE.V5I2.10220
T. Slater
In the process of writing a discipline-based science education research article for the Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education, authors are faced with the question of titling each of the article’s subjections. Some editors and authors advocate a METHODS section whereas others advocate for a METHODOLOGY(IES) section. What do we currently prefer in JAESE? The answer is an unsatisfying, “it depends.” The vast majority of papers in the JAESE Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education use a traditional METHODS section because most—but certainly not all—papers to date describe studies in which the method of inquiry is based on a balance of pragmatism, cost, usefulness, and actionable information. This is in contrast to a METHODOLOGY section, which takes time to argue for why a particular approach will be most fruitful for the question at hand. A robust mix of both are vitally important across the broader discipline-based science education researcher community.
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