Astro 375 / Astro 300 (Fall 2016)

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

Class is held: TBD

The Bootcamp is held: Monday, Aug 22 and Tuesday, Aug 23 from 2-4pm in Campbell 121.

Faculty Instructor: Eugene Chiang (echiang@astro)

Graduate Student Instructors: Carina Cheng (ccheng@berkeley.edu), Beth McBride (bethmcbride@berkeley.edu), Michael Medford (michaelmedford@berkeley.edu), Jason Wang (jwang@astro.berkeley)

• 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.

• Section Video Recap Worksheet
• Peer Visitation Worksheet

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

• 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
• Bloom Taxonomy Handout.
• Writing MC and FR Questions Slides.
• Suggested Readings. Links and copies of suggested reading on teaching and pedagogy.

• 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.

Astro C10 (Filippenko) -

Astro C13 (Quataert) -

Astro 120 (Duchene) -

New Student (TR 2-3 W 9-10)

Some Notes on development and from previous semesters.

• 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)