Fusing the Arts in Astronomy

Teaching Astronomy at an Art school (Interlochen Arts Academy) lends itself well to fusing the arts within the Astronomy curriculum. One activity that I have adopted for the past few years is the one described below that I hope would inspire other Astronomy teachers to emulate and improve upon.

The students are shown the following art piece and asked to examine it carefully.

Afterwards, the students are given instructions to extract three Astronomy questions of their own. The questions must be thoughtful and challenging in nature. Then, out of these three questions, the students are to select one of their three questions and answer it to the best of their ability.

The imagined questions and the hypothesized response to one of their own selected question are to be committed to their notebook. Afterwards, these are to be copied neatly onto a small colored sheet of paper that I would collect for grading purposes.

Once everyone is done, I select a few students names at random to have them share their written items. The conversations that ensue tend to set us on a good path toward discussing excellent Astronomy concepts such as properties of stars, properties of light, nature of color, and positioning of objects in the sky and the celestial sphere in general.

Another bonus of this activity and other ones like it, is the discussion of artists' prerogatives in depicting things in a specific way or another. And, more importantly how humans view the universe through their artistic eyes as well as their scientific eyes.

Finally, this activity does not end here. Instead it continues with some Astro-Forensic Science investigation whose details cannot be divulged in the blog to not spoil the element of surprise.

Please, share your own experiences with such instances where the arts are fused with the sciences.

Thank you

Reflections Enrich Reading & Reading Informs Learning

Introduction

Reading is a vital aspect of learning & so are reflections. Mere reading that is not accompanied by real reflections is empty and devoid of genuine effort in wrestling with the text at hand. What follows is a description of how this kind of assignment is handled and what are some of its benefits and drawbacks.

Why reflections & how?

In my classes, students are to read long prior to coverage of any given material. Lately, I have begun requiring that they write a reflection statement (minimum of 3 sentences) per section that they read. In order for any given reflection to be worthy of consideration, it must contain as many of the following elements as possible. 

• A brief summary of the read section
• A personal introspection on what has been read
• A minimum of one Wonderism (thoughtful question)
• A minimum of one statement connecting concepts to art or real life in general

The decision of insisting on the use of reflections was made to ensure that the following educational objectives are met.

• To guarantee that some reading did indeed occur.
• To, some reasonable extent, ensure that any reading was in fact done by the given student not mere copying from peers did occur.
• To drive home the vital importance of reflections in the learning process.
• To identify any misconceptions students may have regarding concepts they encounter in their reading so that I tailor my lessons to address such misconceptions.
• To foster within students the importance of the interconnectedness between various areas of learning.

Where is the beef?

Following are samples of students' reflections and the highlights are mine to make sure that I address students' reflections to inform how learning would progress via discussions and elucidations.

Student 1 Reflection Sample!

Student 2 Reflection Sample!

Student 3 Reflection Sample!

Student 4 Reflection Sample!

Student 5 Reflection Sample!

Student 6 Reflection Sample!

Closing Thoughts!

1) When one keeps in mind that the above samples were reflection prior to coverage, one is impressed with the amount of thought the students had spent in crafting them. Kudos, dear Astro-Cools (as I call them), you did your instructor proud!

2) The questions that were raised were addressed in three ways, me answering them directly, me asking the class to discuss them in pairs and then as a class, or me suggesting that we postpone the answering till the right opportunity arises.

3) This method of formatively assessing students on reading has yielded a 90% - 95% completion level; a number that makes any instructor both proud and happy.

4) The only downside of the approach is that it is time consuming both in class (for the students and me) and outside of class (for the students.) But, my hunch is that in the long run it would be benefit both the students and me from pedagogical point of view. What do you think?

Thank you for reading the post and please feel free to add your own comments, suggestions, insights, and of course questions! What would be better than reflecting on a post about about reflections?

Big Bang, Let there be Astronomy a la Mr. Le Nadj!

Last year marked the first year ever that I began teaching Astronomy at my institution. 

This blog will begin with a review of Coolisms that occurred last year and then swings to current practices, pedagogy, and other items that I would like to share with the education community.

I look forward making this a useful medium through which ideas are exchanged, instructors benefit, and students flourish in the educational experience that my fellow educator and me will journey with them through it.

I leave you in this post with a teaser that I hope would be a prelude to the good that would follow in future posts. Thank you for being part of this educational journey!

Beauty! :-)

Thank you and take great care! :-)