Contents

Teaching & Design
Summary
Teaching Positions
Philosophy
Intro. Astronomy
Elementary Methods
Computer Methods
Elementary Teaching
Ivy Tech
High School
Oregon Adventure
STREAMS

Teaching: Introductory Astronomy

URL: http://vss.crlt.indiana.edu

Context	The Virtual Solar System project used desktop Virtual Reality technologies to teach introductory Astronomy at Indiana University. In lieu of going to lectures or taking tests, students designed models of the Solar System. I participated in the project for five semesters as first a data analyzer and then writing up the results. Since I was the primary instructor for this project, this project cuts across both teaching and research. I participated in this project for my professional development, rather than as employment or for course credit.
Conditions	The VSS course is a freshman level course for non-science majors, first envisioned by Dr. Kenneth E. Hay, in which students work in dyads and triads to build 3-D models of different aspects of the Solar System. The course is worth three credits and meets twice a week for two hours each day during the regular fifteen week semester. During the eight-week summer sessions the course meets four days a week for two hours each day. The course has longer contact hours than the average three-credit course because much of the work students do related to construction of their models occurs during the regularly scheduled class time.
Scope	This project spanned about three years and resulted in five courses being taught at two Universities and one middle school. The project was a full-blown design experiment and went from prototype to adoption in multiple college classrooms. The course is currently being taught and expanded at the University of Georgia.
Role	In my role as teacher, I took what we were learning from our research on the course and used this information to change the structure of the course. The first course consisted of two projects; however this proved to be too difficult for students to learn both the content and how to use the software. In the next course a third project was developed to help students learn the terminology they need to understand astronomy, but this project also facilitated student learning of the software. The course has changed significantly from the first iteration and we are currently conducting data analysis of pre-post student interviews to determine the advantages and disadvantages of using 3-D computer technology to facilitate student understanding of astronomy concepts.