Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 13

I’m posting this on the Monday after the week named in the title. This week is a slightly short week becuase Friday is a holiday (Veteran’s Day) so the MWF section loses two hours of classroom time. Because of concerns raised by some students and some by me, I rearranged the groups this week. Some […]

Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 11

This week was mostly devoted to informal formative assessment (I’m really beginning to hate those words). Students were asked to explain aspects of a stick’s shadow’s behavior in terms of, for example, Sun’s diurnal and annual motions. Example questions would be something like: “In one sentence, explain why a stick’s noon shadow changes length during […]

Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 10

This week was all about observing. Students were assigned Activity0301, which consists of two main parts. The activity, both parts, is to be done from the same location each night. Students are expected to have previously established the four cardinal directions at their respective observing sites. The first part is observing Moon. This can be […]

Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 9

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week constituted our fall break. Unfortunately, that means the evening section, which meets MW, did not meet at all and the two daytime sections (one of which meets MWF and the other meets TuTh) only had one full class period each. This “week” was devoted entirely to what I […]

Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 8

This post is being written one week late. That seems to be a pattern and I need to stop it. The first class day of this week was devoted to finishing up some WebAssign assignments related to the shadow activities. There are STILL some students who have not completed these activities but I have given […]