CAPER Center for Astronomy & Physics Education Research

11/06/2020

Need to get inspired? Join a lively group of insightful enthusiasts at the Teaching Network zoom sessions on Fridays at 3pm ET and 12pm PT at http://www.caperteam.com/astrobasecamp all fall semester long

CAPER Center for Astronomy Education and its partners annually provide multiple professional development workshops for faculty who teach astronomy, physics and the planetary sciences.

10/10/2020

Evolution in the Digital Age: Implementation of 5E and NGSS in the Virtual Biology Classroom Article Sidebar PDF Published: Oct 7, 2020 Main Article Content Sarah Kathryn Guffey University of South Alabama Abstract Abrupt transition to remote learning through digital platforms may be compared to the...

09/24/2020

Because you need to blow off a little steam.

HawaiiCon 2020 Esports: Four days of Smash Bros. Tourneys! Free registration and PRIZES. Presented by Big Island's Animator_Andrew!

Register for free: www.HawaiiCon.com

09/07/2020

Weekly Astro Teaching Coffee Klatsch Returns: The Zoom Meeting You Look Forward To

Don’t get left out - Your colleagues are meeting without you! Join our weekly face-to-face video-teleconference "anti-faculty-meeting" meeting for astronomy educators and outreach enthusiasts who want to learn and to share. The Astro Base Camp (or ABC for short) is the weekly place to hang out and meet "face-to-face" via video-teleconference with colleagues who are dealing with the same issues you are. Think of it as something half-way between an online mastermind mentoring group and an informal coffee klatsch.
This fall 2020 semester, Astro Base Camp meets via zoom desktop video-teleconferencing on Fridays at 3pm eastern, 2pm central, 1pm mountain, and 12pm pacific (folks in Arizona and Hawai'i will have to guess what time that is for you) during the academic year using zoom from your phone or computer. Please make plans to join us – it is only an hour per week investment, which will pay many times over in dividends.
We hope you'll join us, see some old friends, make some new acquaintances, and not feel so isolated in your astronomy teaching endeavors.
Find out more at: http://www.caperteam.com/astrobasecamp and mark your calendar for Friday afternoons, starting September 11.

CAPER Center for Astronomy Education and its partners annually provide multiple professional development workshops for faculty who teach astronomy, physics and the planetary sciences.

09/02/2020

Mark Your Calendar for 2021 ASTRONOMY TEACHING SUMMIT August 9011, 2021 at Long Beach City College

If you haven't attended the Astronomy Teaching Summit before, it is the professional development conference that you do not want to miss! Held this year in sunny Southern California, the Astronomy Teaching Summit brings together dedicated astronomy and planetary sciences educators to share innovative teaching techniques and successful instructional strategies that increase students’ engagement, achievement, and motivation.
Traditionally focused on improving teaching and learning for the introductory college astronomy ASTRO 101 survey courses for non-science majoring undergraduates, the Summit now brings together a wider variety of astronomy educators and outreach enthusiasts at all levels where astronomy and planetary science is taught: K-12, College-101, Graduate School, Planetariums/Museums, and Amateur Astronomy Groups.
The 2021 Summit will feature nationally known keynote speakers, hands-on workshops, contributed presentations, panel discussions, and fireside chats with plenty of opportunities to network with like-minded educators - this is the place to dramatically enhance your teaching skills and learn how to improve your course evaluations! This year, we are also featuring a parallel, cutting-edge science strand with wall-to-wall science-update talks from the active research scientists you want to hear from. Whether you want to upgrade your teaching toolkit or get the latest science results, this is the place you want to be! Register, submit a proposal, and reserve your hotel at

A unique conference for astronomy educators and outreach enthusiasts

08/18/2020

Not Too Late to Get INVESTIGATING ASTRONOMY as EBook, as Social Media Interactive Text, or use ExpertTA Online HW to Save your Students Money and Save You Time this Semester

Frustrated by the high cost of traditional textbooks? Less than satisfied with how well your students learn from the free open-access resources available? We would like offer you an alternative astronomy teaching package – INVESTIGATING ASTRONOMY 4e by Tim Slater, Inge Heyer, and Stephanie Slater.
EBOOK: ‘Investigating Astronomy: A Conceptual View of the Universe,’ now in its 4th edition, is an easy-to-read and understand conceptual survey of astronomy constructed on cutting-edge teaching and learning research that helps a wide diversity of students learn most efficiently. Cleverly illustrated by digital artist Alex Richard, this 400-page book is designed for the single-semester introductory survey course, and can work in other teaching situations as well. By producing the book in house, the Ebook is currently available this semester for just $35 on Amazon.
What’s more, all of us have a hard time getting the students to read for their astronomy class, and now there is a solution. The innovative folks at Perusal have figured out how to integrate astronomy texts—like INVESTIGATING ASTRONOMY—into a social media platform where students can interact with one another while they are reading. You’ll be amazed how well it works and how easy (and surprisingly inexpensive) it is to implement in your classroom. Head over to Perusal at https://support.perusall.com/hc/en-us to learn how.
And, if you’re looking down the alley of virtual teaching all of a sudden, tightly matching every chapter in INVESTIGATING ASTRONOMY 4e, we have partnered with ExpertTA to produce a low-cost, worry-free online astronomy homework system that simultaneously helps students engage continuously in the learning of astronomy while lightening the burdensome workload of busy teaching faculty. ExpertTA (https://theexpertta.com/investigatingastronomy/) masterfully handles all of your students’ technical questions so you do not have to worry about it yourself. Question formats include conceptual multiple-choice, drag-and-drop interactives, and short-answer—all for about $30 per student.

08/17/2020

Collaborative Group Learning Activities for you to Try

We are all scrambling during an ever-evolving teaching schedule to better find ways to interact with students. To help out as best we can, CAPER Team is providing faculty with FREE access to ‘Active Learning Tutorials for Astronomy & the Planetary Sciences.’

Each of the 60 included ACTIVE LEARNING TUTORIALs—or ALTs for short—takes into account and targets common misconceptions students have about astronomy and space science. The short ALTS—lasting just 5-7 minutes each--are designed to be easily implemented during class to help students deepen their understanding of challenging concepts across the breadth of everything you teach. Faculty can access a copy at http://www.caperteam.com/alts (please do not give this link directly to students) and try them out with your students.

Active Learning Tutorials for Astronomy & the Planetary Sciences is written by Stephanie Slater, Lancelot Kao, Windsor Tony Morgan, and Rebecca Oppenheimer and Published by Pono Publishing

08/15/2020

Join a Virtual Astronomy Research Team: We Have Remote Observing Projects if You Can Mentor

You can mentor and publish even during a pandemic! If you’d like to lead a small team of students from your institution on a 9 month-long September through May astronomy research project using remote telescopes studying variable stars that is flexible enough to do face-to-face or online, we’ve got a project for you- if you act quickly.

Whether you are a novice professor with little-to-no astronomy research experience or a seasoned veteran looking to expand your research portfolio, we are looking for faculty who can provide supervision and mentoring, and about five or six hours each week for student-team members you assemble running from September to May—enough time to learn what you need to learn, schedule telescope time on our telescopes, observe and analyze, and write up results for publication.

The US-portion of this international project is being coordinated by Dr. Brian Uzpen of Laramie County Community College in Wyoming at [email protected]. To apply to participate, simply fill out an online form right away. (You do not need to name specific student names at this time.)

-> Sign up for the 2020/2021 Academic Year Program at: https://uwyoeducation.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aXhRLfPBh9KdPoN that runs September through May

Let’s go look at some stars!

08/08/2020

If you're looking for refreshing teaching ideas, don't forget to check out the top 30 articles on the Society of College Science Teachers blog!

A Collection of Great College Science Teaching Ideas from the Society of College Science Teachers Blog by Tim Slater | Aug 8, 2019 | 0 comments The Soci­ety of Col­lege Sci­ence Teach­ers, an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary affil­i­ate of the Nation­al Sci­ence Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, is a m...

07/27/2020

Check out this unique call for virtual scholarly papers due August 20: 'Science Fictions, Popular Cultures Academic Conference' has gone virtual! September 24-27, 2020. Virtual presentations with published proceedings -

Science Fictions & Popular Cultures Conference

06/03/2020

Great! You survived the spring semester. Time to regroup & reorganize w/new tactics before the summer semester hits. Our 'Not Your Desk' guide can help!

Not My Desk! The Academics’ Emergency Guide to Working from Home and Teaching Online