AY 300 - Fall 2009: Syllabus

The most up-to-date version of this syllabus is always available on the course website (URL given below).

Discussion and practice of teaching techniques, as applied to astronomy. Open to graduate students who are presently teaching assistants or associates. Two units for course plus one section; three units for two discussion sections.

Website: http://badgrads.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=astro300_f09

Office Hours: Feel free to stop by anytime, or make an appointment for specific meeting times.

Meeting Time and Place: Mondays 5-7 PM

This class is graded on a Pass/No Pass basis. In order to recieve a 'Pass', you must:

1. Miss no more than two sections of class. Further absences should be compensated for by doing make-up assignments.
2. Complete all semester assignments, outlined below. These include a weekly teaching log, a short weekly reading or writing assignment, and several one-time projects.

The intent is to have the weekly homework be a minimal burden and time commitment; you should never have to spend very much time on it and we would much rather you spend your time preparing for section instead! However, you are required to complete all of the weekly assignments on time.

The goals of Ay 300 are:

• To pass on some pedagogical, as well as practical, words of wisdom regarding teaching (in particular teaching astronomy, especially to an audience of non-scientists).
• To facilitate an open forum where we can discuss and practice a wide range of teaching issues, both in theory and in practice.
• To provide resources for you, as astronomy teachers, that will help you both in the short term as GSIs of your sections as well as in the long term as professional teachers/researchers.
• To not waste anyone's time!

It'll definitely be relaxed and relatively informal in this class, but let's make sure to keep it civil and respectful in here. (I don't expect this to be an issue, but you never know.) A large part of this class will involve active participation by each of you, so when someone else is talking, please give them your undivided attention and let's try to keep it to one person talking at a time.

1. Students recap how their sections went
2. Discuss and collect homework assignment
3. Lecture on the day's topics
4. Directed discussion
5. Activity
6. Students plan their next sections

• What is the most important thing for your students to take away from their intro-level astronomy course? Although opinions differ from GSI to GSI and from professor to professor, determining your teaching priorities will help you provide consistent and coherent instruction for your students.

• There are many different types of activities and teaching styles that you can include in section (lectures, group work, individual work, demos, etc.). Get feedback from your students early and often about what they find most useful and tailor your sections to their wants and needs.

• Sometimes what students say they want is not always necessarily what's best for them. We want them to enjoy learning, but not at the expense of learning itself. On rare occasions GSIs may veer so far in order to make things fun/accessible that the material itself becomes trivialized.

• Your students are not identical to you when you were taking college classes. They approach new concepts in different ways, have different strengths and weaknesses, and have very different opinions about what's (intellectually) fun, interesting, and exciting. They might also have a variety of pressures or concerns that you did not experience. Try to be aware of various issues Berkeley undergrads deal with.

• Your favorite problem solving methods won't be helpful to some of your students. Be prepared to explain concepts in different ways and from different perspectives. In addition, keep alternative resources (other GSIs, TALC, etc.) in mind if your explanations run dry.

• Cheating happens. You should be able to recognize it and know the university's, department's, and class' policy for dealing with cheaters.

• You will encounter situations that demand judgment calls on your part. As you deal with them keep in mind, “Is my solution fair to all of my students?”

I plan to cover each of the topics below in the class number listed. Occasionally, topics may spill over into the following class. Additional topics may also be added over the course of the semester. Project-related things are denoted by italics.

Please feel free to make suggestions as this schedule and list of topics is absolutely subject to change!! Printed versions of this list will likely go out of date; check the wiki for the most recent list.

Each week everyone will write in their teaching log a short entry (at least a paragraph) summarizing what they did in section and a few thoughts about how it went. It is important to do this as soon after section as possible before any details are forgotten. I will check this approximately monthly.

I will assign short reading or writing assignments each week that will be due at the beginning of the following class. The assignments will usually be used as a starting point for our directed discussions. The particular assignments will be posted on the wiki here as the semester progresses.

This will be broken into two parts

1. Sometime during the first month of classes, you will be required to attend a section of one of the more experienced GSIs teaching an equivalent class (e.g., AY 10 ~ AY C10, but not AY 7a) this semester. Afterwards, you will meet that GSI outside of class to discuss general impressions, and fill out a worksheet (found here on the wiki). We will discuss the results in class sometime near the end of September.
2. About halfway through the semester you should perform the same exercise with one of your peers also in AY 300. Again, we will discuss the results in class.

At some point during the semester you will be required to attend a lecture of the AY 10 professor that you are not teaching for. After everyone has done this we'll take time in class to compare and contrast the teaching styles of the AY 10 professors.

You will be required to design a demo for use in section for the class you're teaching and present it to the rest of this class. Hopefully the demo will be easy to construct and relatively cheap so that we can get funds through Dexter for you to actually build it. If the demo is very expensive, you will only be required to write-up your idea for the electronic Big Red Binder so that the idea can be revisited later by future GSIs. More detailed instructions will be given in a project handout (found here on the wiki).

At some point during the semester (possibly twice) I will videotape one of your sections. You will be required to later watch the video with me and have a discussion about your style of running section.

At some point during the semester (possibly twice) I will come observe you running a TALC session. You will be required to later meet with me and have a discussion about your style of running TALC.

By the end of the semester, you should have uploaded your best/favorite original worksheet to the EBRB. You can alternatively upload a substantially improved version of a worksheet already on the EBRB. The minimum is one worksheet; you're welcome to upload more if you think they're good. The EBRB usage page gives info on how to integrate new pages into the EBRB structure.

I will ask you to choose an article from the Astronomy Education Review and present it briefly to the class. More info on the AER article assignment page.

“It's been said that Astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character­ building experience.”
–­­Carl Sagan, American astronomer (1934­-1996)

“My aim in teaching is twofold: (a) to maximize my own enjoyment, and (b) they will tell their grandchildren about me.”
–Professor Chris Waltham, Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia - Killam Teaching Award Winner