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astro300_f16:day6 [2016/09/20 18:50] – jwang | astro300_f16:day6 [2016/09/21 19:02] (current) – [Midsemester Evals (15 minutes)] ccheng | ||
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=====Section Recap (15 min)===== | =====Section Recap (15 min)===== | ||
+ | Remind them what to think about for section recap: | ||
+ | * What did you do? | ||
+ | * What worked? | ||
+ | * What didn't work? What would you do differently? | ||
+ | * How did you assess learning? | ||
+ | * Did anything unexpected happen? | ||
===== Misconceptions (40 min)===== | ===== Misconceptions (40 min)===== | ||
- | * Group discussion of video and slides | + | * Group discussion of video and slides |
===== Break (5 min) ===== | ===== Break (5 min) ===== | ||
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===== Demos (20 min) ===== | ===== Demos (20 min) ===== | ||
- | Diffraction grating demo (10 min) | + | Diffraction grating demo (12 min) - a 7A/120 combo demo. The purpose is to visualize how diffraction/ |
- | * Which way are the lines spaced? | + | * How a spectrometer works (5 min) - spectrometer in 120 lab is a black box. Now we can look into the box to see what goes on |
- | * How many lines per mm? | + | * Laser pointer (red) + diffraction grating + point at white board (2 volunteers: laser and grating (need to hold still)) |
- | * Wavelength dependence | + | * Identify orders |
- | * Width of Human Hair | + | * Grating equation (simpler one) |
+ | * Grating is created by etching in opaque lines periodically. | ||
+ | * What is the spacing of the lines? | ||
+ | * Add/change to a green laser (another volunteer). | ||
+ | * Explain how this allows us to separate wavelengths so that a spatial location corresponds to light at a given wavelength | ||
+ | * Explain nuances: spectrometers usually used ruled rather than holographic gratings (better efficiency). Using although reflective rather than transmissive (more compact) | ||
+ | * More of a general diffraction demo: width of a human hair (4 min) | ||
+ | * Volunteer to supply and hold hair in front of laser pointer | ||
+ | * See the ensuing diffraction pattern. Can anyone explain what we're seeing? | ||
+ | * This is analogous to the single slit experiment | ||
+ | * Equation for single slit experiment (Diffraction minima) | ||
+ | * Volunteer to measure the diffraction pattern (what should we measure?) | ||
+ | * Human hair ~50 microns with factor of ~2 variance | ||
+ | * How does this compare with the diffraction grating? | ||
+ | * Can you use this to explain why it can be desirable to want bigger telescopes? | ||
+ | * Pass out diffraction gratings to class (4 min) | ||
+ | * These can be borrowed from the Physics demo room (72 Le Conte - in the basement). C10 also has a bunch in the storage room cabinet on the 1st floor (used for arclamp demo). | ||
+ | * What else can we look at with the diffraction gratings? | ||
- | Discussion on doing demos? Has anyone done demos and how did they turn out? | + | Meta Discussion |
+ | * Demos are great to illustrate phenomena, especially ones that aren't easy to understand. Diffraction is often explained | ||
+ | * Can be fun alternative way to cover a topic rather than a worksheet | ||
+ | * As a class on the board: Thinking about the demo we just did and previous | ||
+ | * What makes a good demo? (with e.g.'s connecting it back to the diffraction demo) | ||
+ | * Illustrating difficult physical concept(s) (e.g. diffraction is not intuitive) | ||
+ | * Interactive: | ||
+ | * A springboard to new topics (e.g. can think about extending this to other applications) | ||
+ | * Straightforward: | ||
+ | * Demo actually illustrates concept in question (e.g. this one is straightforward because very little that is analogy) | ||
+ | * When demos go wrong: | ||
+ | * Demos **can and sometimes do** FAIL! (e.g. backups, explain what they should see, test your demo!) | ||
+ | * Sometimes, especially in astronomy, they can confuse students more than help them or oversimplify a concept. Both overly complex and overly simplified demos can be confusing! (e.g. this demo attempts to treat diffraction at the same level as the course) | ||
+ | * Materials may be missing or broken, so CHECK IN ADVANCE! (e.g. go check on diffraction gratings a week in advance, test lasers) | ||
+ | * Collect diffraction gratings from class | ||
+ | * Some of our C10 favorite demos: see [[astro300_f13: | ||
+ | ===== Office Hours (15 min) ===== | ||
+ | This is in particular relevant to the lab-based courses (Ay120, Python class) where most of the GSI interaction is in the form of office hours or emails to answer questions on assignments. These are also useful in TALC. | ||
- | ==== Some notes ==== | + | Group discussion - you've probably been doing this but making it more explicit: |
+ | * (15 min) Handling Student Questions | ||
+ | * When you get questions from students on homework questions, how do/should you handle them? | ||
+ | * We don't generally want to just tell them how to do the problem | ||
+ | * We don't want the reason they did something to be: "The GSI told me to do it this way" | ||
+ | * In groups of 2-3, come up with 1 question you face or could face and how you would handle that one question without giving away the answer (e.g. I have trouble doing problem _, can you help me?). Come up with an example of a question of where you should just give away the answer and explain why that is the case (7 minutes) | ||
+ | * Go over as a class (8 minutes) | ||
+ | * General strategy: Identify where the confusion is and address it | ||
+ | * Identifying the confusion: ask them to explain the problem to you as best as they can and see where they run into trouble | ||
+ | * What kind of confusion is it: misunderstanding? | ||
+ | * Address the source of the confusion and have them attempt the problem again | ||
+ | * In general, we want to push the question back to them, but in a different/ | ||
+ | * e.g. How do I find the location of the star in my data? How would you answer that | ||
+ | * e.g. Where do you think it is? What did your brain just do to try to figure out where it is? How could I put that in mathematical/ | ||
+ | * Learning how to problem solve and get to the answer are skills we want to teach | ||
- | | + | |
- | * Demos are a great addition | + | * How to handle debugging issues? Ask for opinions |
- | * Sometimes they actually do help elucidate concepts and students like doing " | + | * When do you help them? |
- | * As always, the EBRB is a great resource and has a page devoted | + | * Avoid spiral of debugging everyone' |
- | * In addition, on a given topic' | + | * General rule for Astrolab: because the class does not explicitly prereq coding, especially |
- | + | * When should you just give them the answer? | |
- | * What makes a good demo? | + | * Things that do not really contribute |
- | * Illustrating difficult physical concept(s) | + | * Math errors: 1+1=3? (Exception: equations |
- | * Interactive: students can participate | + | * Coding API questions (how do I make an array in numpy, what is the argument |
- | * A springboard to new topics | + | * Things that take a long time to figure out how to get, but don't have very much benefit |
- | * Straightforward: | + | |
- | * Demo actually illustrates concept in question | + | |
- | + | ||
- | * When demos go wrong: | + | |
- | * Demos **can and sometimes do** FAIL! | + | |
- | * Sometimes, especially | + | |
- | * Materials may be missing or broken, so CHECK IN ADVANCE! | + | |
- | + | ||
- | * Some of our C10 favorite demos: | + | |
- | * Remind everyone that most are written up in the EBRB and on the Resources handout (and wiki page) | + | |
- | * Do **bolded** ones? | + | |
- | * Keep going until a couple minutes before this chunk of class is supposed | + | |
- | - **Arc lamps**: Put high voltage through tubes of gas and look through diffraction gratings to see spectral lines. | + | |
- | * C10 already did this, this year.. Check if useful to describe for 10...? | + | |
- | * Head GSIs will train GSIs | + | |
- | * Students like this one | + | |
- | * Make sure the stuff is there if your section is early in the day. | + | |
- | * Test it yourself and make sure you can see lines so you can help your students better. | + | |
- | - Warping of Spacetime: A 2D analogy using stretchy black fabric and balls/ | + | |
- | - Celestial sphere, phases of the moon, seasons, orbits: Styrofoam balls, a lamp or flashlight, people getting up and moving around. Many worksheets go with these kinds of demos and can be found on the Demos page of the EBRB or on the Celestial Sphere, Gravity and Orbits, and Earth/ | + | |
- | - Retrograde motion //(Discuss pitfalls)// | + | |
- | - Day & night on Earth (circle up around a lamp and groups of 3) | + | |
- | - Lunar phases (balls on a sticks around a lamp and groups of 3) | + | |
- | | + | |
- | - **Lunar rotation and orbit (//i.e.// tidal locking) (one person orbits another with the Moon's arms outstretched)** | + | |
- | - **Parallax with your finger (very simple, “close one eye then the other” kind of thing)** | + | |
- | - Doppler shift of sound (whirling a buzzer on a string) | + | |
- | - Class H-R diagram (too long to do in Ay 300) | + | |
- | - Stating in words, stating in math, drawing, and acting out Kepler's and/or Newton' | + | |
- | - Donut/bagel on a string | + | |
- | - Jumping on a chair with balls being thrown (though I'm sure profs will do it in class) | + | |
- | - **(Rayleigh) Scattering | + | |
- | - Planetary Nebulae | + | |
- | * Physics has some, but it's kind of a pain to check them out, but some are good for section and some are good for full lecture. | + | |
- | + | ||
- | ===== Office Hours (15 min) ===== | + | |
===== Midsemester Evals (15 minutes) ===== | ===== Midsemester Evals (15 minutes) ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Why do we do mid-semester evals (1 min) | ||
+ | * There is a department wide, official end of semester eval, but by then it's too late to fix things for your current students. | ||
+ | * The point of student feedback at mid-semester is to allow you to adjust your section and teaching style as necessary to match your current students' | ||
+ | * However, take the responses with a grain of salt; Ay 10 student don't always know what's best for them! | ||
+ | * General overview of mid-semester evals (1 min) | ||
* These questions should cover things you want feedback on. Be explicit about what you want to know whenever possible. | * These questions should cover things you want feedback on. Be explicit about what you want to know whenever possible. | ||
* There should be room for some free response (e.g., if there' | * There should be room for some free response (e.g., if there' | ||
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* If you have quantitative questions, this might include averages, or distributions. | * If you have quantitative questions, this might include averages, or distributions. | ||
* You should make sure they are able to fill them out anonymously. | * You should make sure they are able to fill them out anonymously. | ||
- | + | | |
- | | + | * Going over Aaron' |
- | * Discuss the wisdom from past GSIs and Slater & Adams chapter 9: | + | * Your mid-semester should be short (1 sided to 2 sided max). This one is just super long to give you different examples on how to approach it. You should feel free to take what you like |
- | * Assigning a combination of " | + | * Going over Carina' |
- | * In addition, | + | * Question 1: Useful to know how serious to take the evaluation comments |
- | * Use different colored highlighters for positive and negative comments that merit further review. | + | * Question 2: Free response allows students to express themselves. |
- | * Four categories of " | + | * Question 3: Take it with a grain of salt, because most students |
- | | + | * Question 4: Another free response. |
- | | + | * Questions 5-8: Useful |
- | | + | * Questions 9-10: Fun, extra questions. Pros: makes the evaluation less formal and fun to read. Cons: can get some inappropriate responses |
- | | + | * After the eval is filled out: (1 min) |
- | * Why do we do mid-semester evals | + | * It's a good idea to read through them all twice: once to just read every answer and the second time to see if you can spot some trends and consistencies (based on the assumption that if a majority of students agrees on something, then it might actually be a valid point or an accurate assessment). |
- | * There is a department wide, official end of semester eval, but by then it' | + | * Arguably the most important part of evals is responding to the criticisms (both positive and negative) publicly in front of the class and addressing at least some of their concerns (Slater & Adams call this ' |
- | * The point of student feedback at mid-semester | + | * **We will ask you to compile a short summary report: |
- | * However, take the responses with a grain of salt; Ay 10 student don't always know what's best for them! | + | |
- | * Mid-semester | + | |
- | * They should be done about half-way through the semester | + | |
- | * They should be anonymous (however you might want to ask for their section number so you can compare your multiple sections). | + | |
- | * Sometimes this is done during the last 10 mins of a section, but you get less accurate responses this way since many students will rush through it just to leave early. | + | |
- | * Consider doing it in the middle of section (maybe right after your initial lecture review/ | + | |
- | * The GSI will usually step out of the room during this time or //at least// turn their back to the class. | + | |
- | * Have a student collect all of the evals and put them in an envelope. **DO NOT** open the envelope until way later (//i.e.// after you've left Evans and there are no students around you at all). | + | |
- | * **Always** be sure to give students way more than enough room to write. You don't want them to limit responses simply because they feel they don't have enough room. You might even consider printing the evals one-sided and make a note at the beginning of the eval saying that if the student needs more room to write that they should feel free to use the back of the page. | + | |
- | * Here' | + | |
- | - Section structure (lecture review, Q&A, worksheets, demos, group work, //etc.//) | + | |
- | - GSI' | + | |
- | - Section content (which topics are covered and how long is spent on each) | + | |
- | - Stuff besides section or lecture | + | |
- | - Course content (which topics are covered and how long is spent on each) | + | |
- | - Course structure (order of topics, demos during lecture, audience participation during lecture, grading, //etc.//) | + | |
- | - Prof's skills (board skills, student interaction skills, lecture skills, //etc.//) | + | |
- | * Types of questions: | + | |
- | * Open ended (good because | + | |
- | -Describe three things you like about this section. | + | |
- | -What does your GSI need to do less of in section? | + | |
- | -Put any additional comments. | + | |
- | * Quick answer (very directed or short answer questions are good for students who don't want/ | + | |
- | | + | |
- | -Give the section | + | |
- | -Circle MORE, LESS, or THE SAME for the amount of time (relative | + | |
- | * Humorous | + | |
- | -Draw a face that best describes how you feel about this class. | + | |
- | * Humorous (just for fun). //E.g.//: | + | |
- | | + | |
- | * Humorous | + | |
- | * Put a variety of types of questions so that all types of students can give accurate feedback | + | |
- | * After the eval is filled out: | + | |
- | | + | |
- | + | ||
- | + | ||
- | * **We will ask you to compile a short summary report | + | |
- | | + | |
- | | + | |
- | | + | |
- | | + | |
- | * Food for thought: In addition to turning it in to us for this class, the summary report could be sent to the Head GSI and/or prof (as opposed to having them read all of the evals). | + | |
- | * Arguably the most important part of evals is responding to the criticisms (both positive and negative) publicly in front of the class and addressing at least some of their concerns (Slater & Adams call this ' | + | |
- | * Different profs have different opinions of students responses on the evals: some ignore them completely and assume that the students have no idea what's best for them, some ignore them because the prof teaches the way they teach and that's that and it won't change, and some actually read through them (or at least read their GSIs' summaries of the evals). | + | |
- | * Sample ones on the [[private: | + | |
- | * Handout the [[astro300_f09: | + | |
- | + | ||
=====Homework===== | =====Homework===== | ||
- | - Write a midsemester evaluation and administer them in your sections next week (9/26-9/30). After reviewing your students' | + | - Write a midsemester evaluation and administer them in your sections |
- If you haven' | - If you haven' | ||