| Abstract |
Five radio shows; a full-page color spread in the campus newspaper;
YouTube videos; an interactive activity at the local children's museum;
a star party for a dorm; children's books; an outing with Boy Scouts.
This is just a sampling of group projects planned and executed in a
single semester by students in an introductory course for non-science
majors. Everyone in the class joins a group self-organized around common
interests to produce a product or activity that communicates some aspect
of astronomy to a segment of the general population. These projects give
the students a creative outlet to merge some of their outside interests
with the course material, a practical exposure to scientific
communication, an opportunity for peer instruction including peer
evaluation, and a chance to hone their skills in managing group
dynamics.
The semester long effort begins with everyone in the class submitting
individual ideas for subjects and presentation methods. After these
ideas are categorized, students begin organizing the groups on a web
discussion board. They articulate learning goals for the intended
audience and describe how they plan to evaluate the success of the
project and the attainment of these goals. The group members seek
outside advice from people in other groups during one week of the course
discussion section. They submit a progress report and then a first
draft, the latter also sent to a different group for review. After
feedback from the instructor and a week of the teaching assistant's
(TA's) office hours devoted to scheduled meetings with each group, the
students draft the final versions or make presentations near the end of
the semester. |