Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Edward E. Prather (Author), Tim P. Slater (Author), Jeff P. Adams (Author), Gina Brissenden (Author), CAPER (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0132392267 | ISBN-13: 978-0132392266 | Publication Date: August 11, 2007 | Edition: 2

Funded by the National Science Foundation, Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy is designed to help make large lecture-format courses more interactive with easy-to-implement student activities that can be integrated into existing course structures. The Second Edition of the Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy contains nine new activities that focus on planetary science, system related topics, and the interactions of Light and matter. These new activities have been created using the same rigorous class-test development process that was used for the highly successful first edition. Each of the 38 Lecture-Tutorials, presented in a classroom-ready format, challenges students with a series of carefully designed questions that spark classroom discussion, engage students in critical reasoning, and require no equipment.

The Night Sky: Position, Motion, Seasonal Stars, Solar vs. Sidereal Day, Ecliptic, Star Charts. Fundamentals of Astronomy: Kepler’s 2^nd Law, Kepler’s 3^rd Law, Newton’s Laws and Gravity, Apparent and Absolute Magnitudes of Stars, The Parse, Parallax and Distance, Spectroscopic Parallax.  Nature of Light in Astronomy: The Electromagnetic (EM) Spectrum of Light, Telescopes and Earth’s Atmosphere, Luminosity, Temperature and Size, Blackbody Radiation, Types of Spectra, Light and Atoms, Analyzing Spectra, Doppler Shift. Our Solar System: The Cause of Moon Phases, Predicting Moon Phases, Path of Sun, Seasons, Observing Retrograde Motion, Earth’s Changing Surface, Temperature and Formation of Our Solar System, Sun Size. Stars Galaxies and Beyond: H-R Diagram, Star Formation and Lifetimes, Binary Stars, The Motion of Extrasolar Planets, Stellar Evolution, Milky Way Scales, Galaxy Classification, Looking at Distant Objects, Expansion of the Universe.  For all readers interested in astronomy.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy, which was developed by the Conceptual Astronomy and Physics Education Research (CAPER) Team, is a collection of classroom-tested activities designed for the large-lecture introductory astronomy class, although it is suitable for any astronomy class. The Lecture-Tutorials are short, structured activities designed for students to complete while working in pairs. Each activity targets one or more specific learning objectives based on research on student difficulties in astronomy. Most activities can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes.

The instructor's guide provides, for each activity, the recommended prerequisite knowledge, the learning goals for the activity, a pre-activity assessment question, an answer key, suggestions for implementation, and follow-up questions to be used for class discussion or homework.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Each year, over 200,000 students take introductory astronomy—hereafter referred to as ASTRO 101; the majority of these students are non-science majors. Most are taking ASTRID 101 to fulfill a university science requirement and many approach science with some mix of fear and disinterest. The traditional approach to winning over these students has been to emphasize creative and engaging lectures, taking full advantage of both demonstrations and awe-inspiring astronomical images. However, what a growing body of evidence in astronomy and physics education research has been demonstrating is that even the most popular and engaging lectures do not engender the depth of learning for which , faculty appropriately aim. Rigorous research into student learning tells us that one critical factor in promoting classroom learning is students' active "minds-on" participation. This is best expressed in the mantra: "It's not what the teacher does that matters; it's what the students do."

Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy has been developed in response to the demand from astronomy instructors for easily implemented student activities for integration into existing course structures. Rather than asking faculty—and students—to convert to an entirely new course structure, our approach in developing Lecture-Tutorials was to create classroom-ready materials to augment more traditional lectures. Any of the activities in this manual can be inserted at the end of lecture presentations and, because of the education research program that led to the activities' development, we are confident in asserting that the activities will lead to deeper and more complete student understanding of the concepts addressed.

Each Lecture-Tutorial presents a structured series of questions designed to confront and resolve student difficulties with a particular topic. Confronting difficulties often means answering questions incorrectly; this is expected. When this happens, the activities are crafted to help a student understand where her or his reasoning went wrong and to develop a more thorough understanding as a result. Therefore, while completing the activities, students are encouraged to focus more on their reasoning and less on trying to guess an expected answer. The activities are meant to be completed by students working in pairs who "talk out" the answers with each other to make their thinking explicit.

At the conclusion of each Lecture-Tutorial, instructors are strongly encouraged to engage their class in a brief discussion about the particularly difficult concepts in the activity—an essential implementation step that brings closure to the activity. The online Instructor's Guide also provides "post-tutorial" questions that can be used to gauge the effectiveness of the Lecture-Tutorial before moving on to new material.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Benjamin Cummings; 2 edition (August 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132392267
• ISBN-13: 978-0132392266
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Astronomy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Really Enjoyable Introduction to Astronomy, September 19, 2007

By 

Bob Shepherd (Rio Vista, California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

It's been a long coming, but it's finally here! Astronomy instructors and authors have produced a wonderfully readable and thoroughly comprehensible introduction to the science of astronomy. Each topic in this book really is a mini-tutorial as proclaimed by the cover title. The book format is actually written in a laboratory worksheet fashion (the sheets can be detached from the book along their perforated edges) with each worksheet dedicated to a specific astronomy concept (e.g., position, motion, Keplar's Third Law, etc.). One pass through this ingeniously designed "book of tutorials" and the beginner to the wonderful world of the cosmo is truly ready to move on to more advanced astronomy books and/or astronomy courses. My congratulations (and gratitude) to the Pearson Addison-Wesley Publishing Company for making the concept of learning enjoyable once again.

If you are at all interested in astronomy, but recoiled away from the subject after opening a typical "introductory" college textbook, then you would do yourself a tremendous favor by purchasing this book. You won't be disappointed!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Hands-On Suppliment, June 26, 2006

By 

Chad Davies "Downhill" (Barnesville, GA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy (Educational Innovation-Astronomy) (Paperback)

Adam's "Lecture Tutorials" collection is an excellent suppliment to any astronomy textbook. While most text books include a couple of introductory chapters on naked-eye astronomy the material included is often surface deep at best and downright confusing at worst. Much of this is because the topics covered (i.e.-the celestial sphere, daily and yearly motions of the stars, sun and moon, etc) are highly abstract and require activities that force the student to move away from memorization towards an understand of the apparent motions and what causes them.

The Lecture Tutorials are a test ed set of just such activities based on a wealth of astronomy education research. They can be used in both large scale classes and smaller groups to get students to work through the difficult misconceptions and misunderstands that oftentimes beset the subjects being studied.

The activities range throughout the standard astronomy curriculum but, in my opinion, the best activites are those that focus on the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon and stars.

I recommend this to any student trying to better understand the subject and for any educator who wants help moving their students from "fun facts" to deeper understanding.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good tool, July 26, 2011

By 

Webster Leonard (Punta de Este, Maldonado, Uruguay) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

As a self-student in Astronomy, I found this book very useful and easy to read so easy to learn.
For me, a useful tool for understanding the event in the Universe.