What does it take to create an effective and interactive learning environment with 700 students in a college Gen. Ed. Astro Course?

Details What does it take to create an effective and interactive learning environment with 700 students in a college Gen. Ed. Astro Course? What does it take to create an effective and interactive learning environment with 700 students in a college Gen. Ed. Astro Course?

Jan 2012

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21925102p&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #251.02

Computer Science

Learning

Scientific paper

College-level general education (gen ed.) curricula in the US have many goals: exposing students to the breadth of human ideas; elevating their reading comprehension, writing abilities, critical reasoning skills; and providing an understanding of, and appreciation for, subjects outside of their chosen field of study. Unfortunately the majority of the teaching and learning for gen ed. courses takes place in large enrollment courses. In the wake of the recent US financial crisis, many institutions of higher learning face extreme budget cuts, leading many faculty to teach in substantially larger classes with increasingly fewer resources. At the University of Arizona this issue manifests itself in mega-classes with enrollments from 700-1400. We discuss key programmatic and pedagogical changes involved in successfully implementing proven collaborative learning strategies into an Astro 101 mega-class. From devising new ways to hand out and collect papers, to altering course seating, to outlawing cell phones and laptops, to implementing new ways of administering tests. We take a "what ever it takes” approach to engineering this mega-course environment so it can succeed as a learner-centered classroom. Paramount to the success of this course has been the creation of the new CAE Ambassadors program which advances the leadership role of prior non-science majors along the continuum from student, to teaching assistant, to science education researcher, to STEM minor.
This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0715517, a CCLI Phase III Grant for the Collaboration of Astronomy Teaching Scholars (CATS). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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