First Step in Building an Astronomy Learning Progression: Analyzing Student Conceptions of Astronomical Phenomena

Details First Step in Building an Astronomy Learning Progression: Analyzing Student Conceptions of Astronomical Phenomena First Step in Building an Astronomy Learning Progression: Analyzing Student Conceptions of Astronomical Phenomena

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21923501p&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #235.01

Computer Science

Learning

Scientific paper

The Earth and Space Science Partnership (ESSP) collaborated with Pennsylvania teachers to research how grades 4-9 students learned selected topics in Earth and Space Science. Prior to a professional development workshop in astronomy, held during the summer of 2011 at the Pennsylvania State University, 15 participating teachers gave their students a pilot astronomy assessment with questions on the Sun-Earth-Moon system, scale of the Solar System, phases of the Moon, perspective view of the celestial sphere, and planetary orbital velocities. Analysis of students' work revealed cross-cutting themes: patterns, scale, position and relations, time, and motion in the context of these solar system phenomena. Further analysis of students' responses may facilitate the development of an empirical "learning progression" that reveals the pathways students follow as they progress from novice to expert understanding of the underlying astronomical phenomena (e.g., lunar phases) related to these questions.
This poster presents initial analysis, data, and findings based on the student work obtained during the summer of 2011. During subsequent project years, the assessment will be iteratively refined and distributed to additional students in our partner school districts, and this large database of student responses will be used to refine the learning progression. We expect also to use these student work samples to produce a set of performance standards that teachers can use to evaluate the location of students progression from novice to expert understanding of essential astronomical phenomena.
We gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF from a Targeted Math Science Partnership award DUE#0962792.

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