This research concerns the development and assessment of a program of introductory astronomy conceptual exercises called ranking tasks. These exercises were designed based on results from science education research, learning theory, and classroom pilot studies. The investigation involved a single-group repeated measures experiment across eight key introductory astronomy topics with 253 students at the University of Arizona. Student understanding of these astronomy topics was assessed before and after traditional instruction in an introductory astronomy course. Collaborative ranking tasks were introduced after traditional instruction on each topic, and student understanding was evaluated again. Results showed that average scores on multiple-choice tests across the eight astronomy topics increased from 32% before instruction, to 61% after traditional instruction, to 77% after the ranking-task exercises. A Likert scale attitude survey found that 83% of the students participating in the 16-week study thought that the rankingtask exercises helped their understanding of core astronomy concepts. Based on these results, we assert that supplementing traditional lecture-based instruction with collaborative ranking-task exercises can significantly improve student understanding of core astronomy topics.
We present the results of a program to develop techniques that enable high-resolution photometric measurements using modest research instruments available to small colleges, and then demonstrate those techniques in a pilot photometric project.Using a 25 cm Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope and SBIG ST7E CCD camera, we develop techniques that enabled milli-magnitude photometric resolution. The pilot project studied five transits of the recently discovered gas giant planet orbiting HD 209458. We measured a flux drop of 1.46 ± 0.17% during the transit which corresponds to a planetary diameter of 1.39 ± 0.14 RJup, a transit period of 2h 48min ± 21min, and planet orbital inclination of 87.6 ± 1.3°. We determined the orbital period as 3.5234 ± 0.0026 days. These results agree well with other studies which used professional grade research instruments. We suggest a number of other challenging photometric research areas suitable for graduate and undergraduate investigation using equipment common to many small colleges.
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