fea+analysis

8/6/2019 FEA+Analysis

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Kay Miller

FEA IT 5600

3/31/10Fulfills Competency #5 - Development

Overview

The topic will be A History of Western Astronomy from Babylon to Galileo. This

course will seek to build an understanding of what ancient people knew about the cosmos

and how they knew it, and how we came to our modern understanding of cosmology. The

problem addressed by this course is an elementary-level understanding about the history

of science that most students have when they enter college.

Beginning with ancient Babylon and ending with Galileo, students will learn

about how pre-modern people viewed the universe and our place in it through readings

including topical overviews and original sources. Students will also make their own

astronomical observations and reflect on ancient cosmological theories in light of their

observations.

Aside from learning a historical progression in astronomy, students will be asked

to immerse themselves in the mindset of pre-modern astronomers through the readings

and experiential assignments involving recreation of ancient observational tools and

proving that ancient astronomers were correct about the earth being the center of the

universe. The ultimate purpose of this is to use logic and observation to understand what

science is (using astronomy as a basis) and to begin to engage in a discussion about the

nature of science itself.

The scope of the material covered in this course is really too great to be

encompassed in five weekly units. In a full-length university course, several weeks could


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be spent on each unit, and more detailed information could be given (and more depth

would be expected in students projects).

Audience

The audience will be college undergraduates, and the course may be in the context

of a history of science course. Most students will either be preparing for future

coursework in the history or philosophy of science or interested in learning background

information on physics or astronomy. Students taking the course are believed to have

access to computers and high speed internet, either at home or on campus.

Prior to taking the course, most students will have a basic knowledge of world

history and geometry and will be familiar with some of the key topics that will be

covered in class: Babylon, sundials, solar system, geocentric universe, heliocentric

universe, sphere, elliptical orbit, Copernicus, Galileo. Less familiar will be advanced

topics such as MUL.APIN, sexagesimal number system, PtolemysAlmagest, Osiander,

De Revolutionibus, and the Sidereus Nuncius. Students who do have some knowledge of

these advanced topics typically have not read the original sources or considered them in

their historical context. The readings and assignments in this course will help students to

consider the mindset of pre-modern astronomers of different eras and appreciate various

ways of constructing cosmology as we progress chronologically through the course.

Objectives

This course seeks to engage students in developing an integrative view of science

as a cultural and intellectual construct through discussion, analysis and experimentation

with different perspectives on scientific and philosophical thought stretching over 30

centuries from Babylon to Galileo.


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In this course, students will observe astronomical phenomena without modern

tools, analyze source texts and philosophical arguments, discuss the course readings and

experiments, solve logic problems, experiment with contemporary observational

methods, evaluate logical arguments, defend their arguments and explain how their view

of astronomy has changed as a result of this course, its readings, discussions and

assignments.

Rationale

Content chunking is chronological because changes in astronomical and

scientific/philosophical thinking built on earlier thought and observations. In this class

the students will also progress through history as they learn to observe and analyze as

people in earlier eras did. The units for the course will be: 1) Early astronomy in Babylon

and Zodiac thinking, 2) Greek astronomy and philosophy, 3) Ptolemy and the

Almagest, 4) The Renaissance astronomers: Copernicus, Kepler & Brahe, 5) Galileo and

the Sidereus Nuncius.

The chronological progression is similar to Behaviorism because information

delivery is hierarchical. However, the intent is to create a learner-centered course.

Despite the chronological structure, the nature of instruction will be more Cognitivist and

Post-Modern in that the focus will be on knowledge acquired by thinking and that the end

result of learning is the formation of meaning.

The color scheme will be inspired by the astronomical theme, so it will involve

dark blue (like the night sky), grey (like the moon) and bronze (like some of the early

instruments developed to observe the motions of the celestial bodies. Images will

frequently be of historical objects, art and texts. Navigation will give the learners access


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to 85% of content in two mouse clicks. Integration of models and video when applicable,

and forums for discussion will allow for interactivity.

Learning Activities

Reading modern and ancient texts

Discuss readings with instructor and fellow students

Write essays, clearly stating an argument and defending it with course texts and

experiments

Observe astronomical phenomena using simple tools that the students will create

Evaluation of Learning

There will be quizzes in each unit to assess whether students are acquiring the

information sufficiently to meet the course objectives. However, most of the evaluation

will be in less data-driven areas and will focus on student writing. Students will write

weekly essays in which they will analyze the readings, and describe what they have

observed in the night (or daytime) sky. Students will be evaluated on their understanding

of the reading and the depth of their observations and arguments. The criteria that for

evaluation are:

Did the student clearly state his or her argument?

Did the student clearly cite each of the readings and quote the appropriate

passages when backing up the argument?

Did the student understand the authors argument and the historical context?

Did the student record his or her process and observations in sufficient detail

for another to repeat the process with similar results?


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Because of the nature of the course, formative assessment will be very important.

Each essay graded will be returned with detailed feedback pointing to specific

weaknesses in the students understanding, argument, backup, and observational

processes. The feedback will also include questions for further consideration. The student

will be welcome to revise their essay if they choose to do so after considering the

comments and questions provided in the feedback.

Evaluation of Impact

The course will be available in two sections: one online, the other in a classroom

setting. Each section will have the same number of students. The quality of responses and

overall grades in both sections will be compared to each other to see if there is a

difference in the outcomes. This could be done two or more semesters in a row to see if

any pattern emerges in the quality of student performance.

HardshipsI encountered two main hardships in construction the Instructional Site. First, the

content of the course was something that I was familiar with from courses I took at

another university, but since I had not reviewed the material in several years, I had to do

additional research to fill in the gaps. The research that went into creating the site was

rewarding but time consuming, and meant that I had less time to devote to the

development of the site itself. The finished product might have been more effective, with

richer content, learning media and activities. The other difficulty was in finding media

and external websites that met my needs for this course. Ideally, I would like to have

created my own media for a more consistent message and design.

Highlights


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One of the highlights of this project is that the media I incorporated into the

lessons were of good quality. For example, one video demonstrates ancient cosmologies

with animation, so that students can visualize more clearly how ancient astronomers

constructed their world view.

Another highlight of developing the Instructional Site is that the Edu20.org

content management system was easy to use and helped me to organize the content well.

Future improvementsTo improve my site in the future, I would like to make the media and other

learning material myself to ensure greater consistency and coherency, both in the visual

design and in the content. It was difficult to find readings and media that reflected exactly

the points I wanted to make. The translated texts ofThe Almagest, On the Revolutions,

and Sidereus Nuncicus would still be a central part of the course.

I would also improve the site by including more exercises to immerse the students

in the ancient cosmological theories. The enhanced activities might include: using their

astronomical observations to make mathematical predictions of where a particular star or

planet might be at a given time, estimating the circumference of the earth using methods

dating back to antiquity, reconstructing ancient tools for determining true north without a

compass.

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