Learning science requires much more than just learning science. -- Joe Heafner
Every course you take is the most important course you take. -- Joe Heafner
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
I have begun writing an introductory astronomy textbook tentatively entitled Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy. It will differ from existing textbooks in that it will be built entirely upon the themes of critical thinking and inquiry. I would hope that it could be used for one semester courses, including the first semester of a two semester introductory astronomy sequence, both at the high school and college levels. It will definitely be a radical departure from the status quo for both levels, more so for the high school level.
I have put considerable thought into the book's title. It could just have well been titled Learning Astronomy Through Critical Thinking as some readers may suggest. I chose the title based on my strong feeling that critical thinking should underly all introductory science regardless of specific discipline. Of course, if one puts the astronomy before the critical thinking, then one can certainly "teach" astronomy this way, but it will amount to no more than having students memorize terms (many of which are incorrect to begin with) and regurgitate them on tests. I can do better, and our students deserve better.
The actual text will be rather easy to write as there will not be much of it. Most of the book will consist of activities that emphasize critical thinking and how to apply critical thinking to basic astronomy. The activities will also be inquiry based so students get experience in formulating and articulating solutions to increasingly complex questions and problems. Some of the activities have already been written, but many still only exist in my head. I had hoped to spend most of the summer of 2007 writing drafts of the remaining activities, but my request for educational leave for summer 2007 was denied on the grounds that writing a book would be of more use to me personally than to my students. Go figure. I hope to have the entire project completed in time for fall 2012 classes. That seems like a long period of time (and it is!) but I expect to spend a tremendous amount of time refining the activities and developing accompanying assessment instruments, all based on actual classroom experiences. I also anticipate developing extensive accompanying WebAssign materials to go with the book. Maybe five years is not enough after all!
I will not remotely consider approaching a publisher until I have a finished product in hand, although three have already asked me about the project. The entire book will be peer reviewed throughout the writing and testing processes. I intend to be very stubborn about the book's content and approach.
As I envision it, LCTTA is one component of an overall reform in introductory astronomy. The book will have only six chapters, of increasing difficulty, and relying heavily on previous chapters. Each chapter will begin with an antetest (what others call a pretest, but I needed a name that alphabetically precedes posttest) to help gauge students' initial state of understanding. The bulk of each chapter will be a series of inquiry based activities targeting specific questions, allowing students to learn and apply reasoning skills along the way. Each chapter will conclude with a posttest which, together with the antetest, gives a gain, or measure of what has been learned. The antetests and posttests will be multiple choice instruments. Within a chapter, some specific activities will have their own antetest and posttest assessments. Comprehensive tests and a final examination, none of which will be multiple choice, will round out the assessment package. Many questions on these instruments represent what is nowadays considered either "too difficult" or "too unimportant" for introductory astronomy. I intend to demonstrate otherwise.
As the project takes shape, I will provide updates via the LCTTA Twitter feed and text materials (but for obvious reasons not the assessments) on the downloads page. I intend to give the presentations, in one form or another, as papers at AAPT and NCS-AAPT meetings.
Here are currently available materials:
Presentations
These are PDF versions of Keynote (Apple) presentations. Students get these same files as handouts. P8-ILF will soon vanish as it is subsumed/superseded by Activity 0105.
• presentation P1-LCTTA project overview (ten minute version also available)
• presentation P2-PALCTTA Points Against LCTTA and its approach to astronomy
• presentation P3-SCLCTTA Student Comments on LCTTA and its approach to astronomy
• presentation P4-DSL Defining Scientific Literacy and its connection to the LCTTA project
• presentation P5-PSL Problematic Scientific Language and its connection to the LCTTA project
• presentation P6-GPST Glossary of Precise Scientific Terms (alphabetized version also available)
• presentation P7-OCT Overview of Critical Thinking
• presentation P8-ILF Introduction to Logical Fallacies
• presentation P9-HTDB How to Detect Baloney
Activities
Activity labels are of the form CCAA where CC is the chapter number and AA is a sequential number within the chapter. Thus, 0101 means chapter one activity one. I occasionally have something like 0300, indicating activity zero in chapter three. All titles and labels are subject to frequent change until the content is frozen. The versions available here are the versions students get. Instructors may email me for instructor versions.
Chapter 1: Critical Thinking
• Activity 0101a,b,c,d First Day (four versions, one classroom tested)
• Activity 0102 What do you know? (classroom tested)
• Activity 0103 Taking Your First Steps (classroom tested)
• Activity 0104 Frameworks (classroom tested)
• Activity 0105 Logical Fallacies (NOT classroom tested yet)
• Activity 0106 Scientific Validity (classroom tested)
• Chapter 1 Question Catalog (mostly classroom tested)
Chapter 2: Observation
These activities currently require a Flash simulation, which is available from the downloads page. As of this fall, I’m switching to an Easy Java Simulation for the shadow activities.
• Activity 0201 Observing A Stick’s Shadow 1 (classroom tested)
• Activity 0202 Observing A Stick’s Shadow 2 (classroom tested)
• Activity 0203 Observing A Stick’s Shadow 3 (classroom tested)
• Activity 0204 Observing A Stick’s Shadow 4 (classroom tested)
• Activity 0205 Observing Extreme Shadows (classroom tested)
• Activity 0206 Observing Eratosthenes And Scientific Models (classroom tested)
Chapter 3: The Celestial Sphere
• Activity 0301 Observing The Sky (classroom tested)
• Activity 0302 Relative Motion (hopefully ready for this fall)
• Activity 0303 Sun's Daily And Annual Motions (classroom tested)
• Activity 0304 Lunar Illumination (classroom tested)
Chapter 4: Time
Coming soon!
Chapter 5: Gravitation
Coming soon!
Chapter 6: Astronomical Measurements
Coming soon!
I have several activity/chapter assessments in draft form now, but they are not yet presentable. I will, of course, share them with instructors but will not otherwise make them publicly available.