A New Resource for College Distance Education Astronomy Laboratory Exercises
Abstract
This article introduces a set of distance education astronomy laboratory exercises for use by college students and instructors and discuss first usage results. This General Astronomy Education Source (GEAS) exercise set contains eight two-week projects designed to guide students through both core content and mathematical applications of general astronomy material. Projects are divided between hands-on activities and computer-aided analyses of modern astronomical data. The suite of online resources includes student and instructor guides, laboratory report templates, learning objectives, video tutorials, plotting tools, and web-based applications that allow students to analyze both images and spectra of astronomical objects. A pilot usage study indicates that distance learners using these materials perform as well or better than a comparison cohort of on-campus students. We are actively seeking collaborators to use these resources in astronomy courses and other educational venues.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1505.00051,
title = {A New Resource for College Distance Education Astronomy Laboratory Exercises},
author = {Nicole P. Vogt and Stephen P. Cook and Amy Smith Muise},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.00051},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
7 pages, 4 figures