Astro 375 / Astro 300 (Fall 2017)

Astro 375 / Astro 300 (Fall 2017)

This course qualifies for the GSI Teaching and Resource Center's Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Basics

Class is held: Wednesdays, 6:30pm-8pm, Campbell 131

The Bootcamp is held: Thursday, Aug 17 (3pm-5pm, Campbell 121) and Wednesday, Aug 23 (6pm-8pm, Campbell 131)

Faculty Instructor: Eugene Chiang (echiang@astro)

Graduate Student Instructors: Carina Cheng (ccheng@berkeley), Tom Zick (tzick@berkeley)

Quick Links

The Syllabus. Make sure you read this!
The Electronic Big Red Binder. An important resource for GSIs. Reuse and modification of any and all of the materials in these resources is highly encouraged! So is contribution back to the EBRB of your improved materials! There is also an older physical copy (The Big Red Binder), located in the library.
Teaching Logs. Summaries of the short teaching log prompts.
Assignments. Summaries of all assignments for Ay375.

Worksheets

Ay 375 Lesson Plans

(Any lesson plans for future dates are subject to revision, but feel free to peruse if you're interested.)

Class Number	Date	Lead Instructor	Topics	Lesson Plan Link
1	Aug 17 (Thurs)	Carina/Tom	Bootcamp Day 1: Sample Class, First Day	Bootcamp Day 1
2	Aug 23 (Wed)	Carina/Tom	Bootcamp Day 2: Board work, Review of Lesson Plans and Syllabi	Bootcamp Day 2
3	Aug 30	Carina	Learning Objectives/Lesson Plans, Group Work	Class 3
4	Sept 6	Tom	Writing Exams and Homework	Class 4
5	Sept 13 (Peer visits this week)	Tom	Grading Rubrics, Quiz Exchange	Class 5
6	Sept 20 (C10 quizzes this week)	Carina	Student Misconceptions	Class 6
7	Sept 27	Carina/Tom	Motivation/Mindset, Midsemester Evals	Class 7
8	Oct 4 (Section taping this week)	Carina	Biases, Small Teaching Part I	Class 8
9	Oct 11	Carina/Tom	Small Teaching Part II	Class 9
10	Oct 18	Tom	Experienced GSI Q&A	Class 10
11	Oct 25 (C10 quizzes this week)	Tom	Faculty Q&A	Class 11
12	Nov 1	Tom/Carina	Ethics, Teaching Statements & Portfolios	Class 12
13	Nov 8	Carina	Communicating Science to the Public	Class 13
14	Nov 15	Carina/Tom	“2-minute thesis” Talks, Celia's!	Class 14

Handouts

Ay 375-specific and general pedagogy

GSI Basics - getting started as a GSI (some basic ground rules)
Teaching Resources - quite extensive list of teaching resources
Teaching in the Community - opportunities for teaching outside of Cal (handout and TeX source)
TALC - information about The Astronomy Learning Center (TALC)
Academic Honesty and Cheating Policies - information regarding both the University and Department policies
Writing Homework Assignments - tips and suggestions for writing good homework assignments from AY 300, Fall 2008.
Writing Quizzes and Exams - tips and suggestions for writing good quizzes and exams
Grading Student Work - guidelines and suggestions about grading homeworks, quizzes, and exams as well as calculating grades for discussion section and overall course grades
Writing MC and FR Questions Slides.
Suggested Readings. Links and copies of suggested reading on teaching and pedagogy.

Cool Teaching Links

Astronomy Education Review - Awesome e-journal on astronomy education published a couple times a year.
NASA's Center for Astronomy Education - NASA's portal for the teaching of introductory astronomy to nonscientists. Lots of stuff, updated frequently.
Reaching the Second Tier: Learning and Teaching Styles in College Science Education - Interesting essay on learning styles and how to improve teaching styles.
Berkeley TEA Essays - UC Berkeley gives Teaching Effectiveness Awards yearly to GSIs who have implemented new teaching techniques in their classrooms. This page links to essays by the GSIs describing their innovations.
Heavenly Errors - A list of >1700 astronomy misconceptions compiled by Neal F. Comins at the University of Maine.
Melissa's Teaching Page - Melissa Graham, a postdoc in the astronomy department, has taught a similar course at the University of Victoria. Her “Ay375” page is here.

GSI Assignments

Astro C10 (Filippenko) - Nick Choksi, Jordan Fleming, Steven Giacalone, Benjamin Jeffers, Philipp Kempski, Casey Lam, Sarafina Nance, Nathan Sandford, Jackson Sipple

Astro C162 (Imke de Pater) - Chris Moeckel

Members of Ay375 (teaching times)

C10: 121 Campbell

M 9AM-10AM (Philipp Kempski)
M 10AM-11AM (Philipp Kempski)
M 12PM-1PM (Benjamin Jeffers)
M 2PM-3PM (Jordan Fleming)
Tu 9AM-10AM (Jackson Sipple)
Tu 2PM-3PM (Nick Choksi)
Tu 3PM-4PM (Nick Choksi)
W 9AM-10AM (Nathan Sandford)
W 10AM-11AM (Nathan Sandford)
W 11AM-12PM (Sarafina Nance)
W 12PM-1PM (Casey Lam)
W 1PM-2PM (Casey Lam)
Th 9AM-10AM (Sarafina Nance)
Th 10AM-11AM (Jackson Sipple)
Th 11AM-12PM (Benjamin Jeffers)
F 9AM-10AM (Steven Giacalone)
F 12PM-1PM (Steven Giacalone)
F 2PM-3PM (Jordan Fleming)

C162: 121 Campbell

Tu 5PM-7PM (Chris Moeckel)

Peer Visits

Nathan visits Casey
Chris visits Jordan
Jordan visits Steven
Sarafina visits Ben
Casey visits Sarafina
Steven visits Nick
Jackson visits Philipp
Nick visits Nathan
Philipp visits Chris
Ben visits Jackson

Section Taping

Week of 10/2:

Philipp: M 10AM-11AM (Carina)
Nick: Tu 3PM-4PM (Carina)
Chris: Tu 5PM-7PM (Carina)
Nathan: W 10AM-11AM (Carina)
Casey: W 12PM-1PM (Carina)
Sarafina: Th 9AM-10AM (Tom)
Jackson: Th 10AM-11AM (Tom)
Ben: Th 11AM-12PM (Tom)
Steven: F 12PM-1PM (Tom)
Jordan: F 2PM-3PM (Tom)

Previous Semesters

Fall 2016 (Carina Cheng, Beth McBride, Michael Medford, Jason Wang)
Fall 2015: Ay375 resurrected mid-semester by Aaron Lee, Francesca Fornasini, Carina Cheng
Fall 2014 (Aaron Lee)
Fall 2013 (Aaron Lee and Francesca Fornasini)
Fall 2012 (Jonnie Pober and Therese Jones)
Fall 2011 (Therese Jones and Aaron Lee)
Fall 2010 (Aaron Lee and Josh Shiode)
Fall 2009 (Josh Shiode)
Fall 2008 (Jeffrey Silverman and Peter Williams)
Fall 2007 (Jeffrey Silverman and Daniel Perley)
Fall 2006 (Holly Maness)

Table of Contents