A primary goal of general education introductory astronomy courses often is to provide students with examples of how science is actually done. Low to nonexistent mathematical prerequisites in some courses can make useful exercises difficult to find, and sometimes very difficult for students, especially if the exercises feature quantitative…

While teaching his first-ever introductory college astronomy course, I heard a graduate student make the comment that compared to other areas of astronomy, studying the solar system is just "stamp collecting." Coverage of the solar system in an introductory college astronomy course certainly "could" consist mostly of showing…

In a recent "AstroNote," I described a simple exercise on the mass-luminosity relation for main sequence stars as an example of exposing students in a general education science course of lower mathematical level to the use of quantitative skills such as collecting and analyzing data. Here I present another attempt at a meaningful…

What follows is a description of the procedure for a directed-study in which a student, guided by a faculty member, attempted to identify potentially habitable exoplanets using actual data available online from NASA's "Kepler" Mission.

In a previous article in this journal, we reported on a laboratory activity in which students used a derivation from the Stefan-Boltzmann law to calculate planetary temperatures and compare them to measured values from various (mostly online) sources. The calculated temperatures matched observed values very well with the exceptions of Venus and…

Although traditional lectures are still the dominant form of undergraduate instruction, there have been relatively few studies comparing various learner-centered and active learning teaching strategies to one another in order to guide professors in making informed instructional decisions. To study the impact of different active learning…

The "Life in the Universe Survey" is a twelve-question assessment instrument. Largely based on the factors of the Drake equation, it is designed to survey students' initial estimates of its factors and to gauge how estimates change with instruction. The survey was used in sections of a seminar course focusing specifically on life in the universe…

The beginning of a typical solar system "unit" in a traditional introductory astronomy course often consists of an overview of the different object types--planets, moons, and debris (asteroids, comets, and meteors), and now also Pluto's home, the Kuiper belt--prior to coverage of formation and more detail about the various object types. An…

Misconceptions that students bring with them to the introductory science classroom plague every area of science and are especially prevalent in astronomy. One way to identify and possibly dispel some of these misconceptions is through the use of a misconceptions survey. The following is a report on the development, implementation, and some early…

The idea of sending students and the general public on a walk through a scale model of the solar system in an attempt to instill an appreciation of the relative scales of the sizes of the objects compared to the immense distances between them is certainly not new. A good number of such models exist, including one on the National Mall in…

Visual assessments and tutorials are instruments that rely on student construction and/or examination of pictures and/or diagrams rather than multiple choice and/or short answer questions. Being a very visual subject, astronomy lends itself to assessments and tutorials of this type. What follows is a report on the results of the use of visual…

In recent years, short question-and-answer activities known as lecture tutorials that are designed to help students work with and discover concepts for themselves, rather than simply being told about them (lectured to) have become a popular tool for learner-centred teaching of introductory college astronomy. Students on such a course are usually…

The Star Properties Concept Inventory (SPCI) is among the first instruments made available to assess student gains in a major section or "unit" of a traditional introductory astronomy course, in this case the unit on stars. This is in contrast to instruments for an entire course, such as the Astronomy Diagnostic Test or the Lunar Phases…

The results of administering the Astronomy Diagnostic Test (ADT) to introductory astronomy students at Henry Ford Community College over three years have shown gains comparable with national averages. Results have also accurately corresponded to course goals, showing greater gains in topics covered in more detail, and lower gains in topics covered…