I learned the importance of bringing interactive teaching techniques into the classroom, and the best techniques to do so, through participation in more than 30 hours of intensive teaching workshops (the Graduate Teacher Program at CU-Boulder) and numerous workshops at the Center for Education Teaching, and Learning (CETL) at UConn. These techniques include Think-Pair-Share, student voting or ``clicker questions" [2], and Lecture Tutorials [3]. For physics classes, the PhET interactive simulations [4] provide excellent visualizations for understanding concepts in basic physics, while WorldWide Telescope [5] gives an awe-inspiring and educational visualization of our Universe, from the Earth, to the solar system, our Galaxy, and beyond.
I have direct experience implementing these techniques in the classroom in two new courses I developed at UConn, PHYS2701: “The Foundations of Modern Astrophysics” and PHYS 4720 / 6720: "Galaxies and the Interstellar Medium," as well as a new course I prepped PHYS1025Q "Introduction to Astronomy." Approximately half of each class period was spent in traditional lecture with on-board notes and powerpoint graphics, with many questions encouraged, intermixed with in-class activities and time to think-pair-share. About half of the class was devoted to in-class activities I developed. These in-class activities took the form of worksheets, and online google documents while remote, and the questions had the students do examples directly related to what we are learning in class, connect their previous knowledge to the current topic, and sometimes deriving a relevant formula for the topic. They were all done in small groups, and I would walk around and check in with them regularly, and they were all centered around developing their problem-solving skills. T
As someone who is passionate about improving diversity in physics, I regularly scrutinize my own classroom practices to ensure that all students are being treated equitably, as sometimes teachers can discourage students from diverse backgrounds unintentionally [e.g. 6]. In practice, this manifests as selecting practical examples of physics that are not biased toward any one group, soliciting student participation equitably, and structuring groups based on education research [7]. I am passionate about social justice and took the initiative to educate myself formally through a 40-hour diversity training as a volunteer at the Boulder Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (SPAN).
[1] Richard R Hake. Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American Journal of Physics, 66(1):64Ð74, 1998.
[2] Clickers: A New Teaching Aid with Exceptional Promise. Douglas Duncan. The Astronomy Education Review, Issue 1, Volume 5, 2006.
[3] Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy (2nd Edition). Edward E. Prather, Tim P. Slater, Jeff Adams, and Gina Brissenden, Addison-Wesley Series in Educational Innovation, Benjamin Cummings, 144 pp, 2007.
[4] PhET interactive simulations https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new
[5] WorldWide Telescope http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/
[6] C. A Moss-Racusin, J. Dovidio, V. Brescoll, M. J Graham, and J Handelsman. Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pages 16, Sep 2012.
[7] Patricia Heller and Mark Hollabaugh. Teaching problem solving through cooperative grouping. Part 2: Designing problems and structuring groups. American Journal of Physics, 60(7):637644, May 1992. Astrophysics, electromagnetic radiation, orbital motion, Newton's Laws, stellar structure, star formation and evolution, galaxies, spectroscopy, quantum mechanics, math methods, problem-solving skills, etc.
Milky Way, Star Formation, Galactic Center, Radio Astronomy, Interferometry, Galactic Structure, Massive Star Formation, Big Data, Extreme Environments, Studies of Nearby Galaxies. At the University of Connecticut, I have founded the Milky Way Laboratory, a research group devoted to studies of the Milky Way and the window it opens into the early Universe. Below are very brief summaries of projects planned in the Milky Way Laboratory over the next decade. As evidenced by my work with over 10 UConn students this academic year, there are many opportunities for students to become involved with this research. Goal 1: Use our Extreme Galactic Center as a Window to Better Understand Star Formation in the Distant Universe. Our Galactic Center has extreme properties, more similar to high-redshift galaxies than our solar neighborhood. I am leading a large survey, the first of its kind, to capitalize on the close proximity of our Galactic Center to better understand star formation in the early Universe. My group is leading a number of publications and follow-up projects with ALMA and SOFIA based on this survey. My graduate student will be performing numerical simulations for direct comparison with our survey data, to help uncover these mysteries. Goal 2: Study Gas Accretion onto Forming Star Clusters. We have identified the most complete sample of starless proto-clusters in the Galaxy, and it has taught us that star clusters continue to accrete gas as they form. This has a big impact – I want to measure the accretion and how it varies. The search for starless proto-clusters in the Galaxy produced the unexpected result that they are less massive than expected. In order to form the massive clusters we see today, they must be growing as the stars form. I am now leading a project to search for evidence of gas accretion in a filamentary proto-cluster, and plan to search for large-scale gas accretion toward all the proto-clusters identified in recent Galaxy-wide surveys to measure the mass accretion rate as a function of mass and evolutionary stage. Goal 3: Identify, Characterize and use the Bones of the Milky Way to Delineate our Galaxy’s Spiral Structure. The basic anatomy of the Milky Way is still poorly understood. Long, skinny clouds tracing spiral arms may help us to fix this. We have several candidate “Bones of the Milky Way" and are working to assemble the full “Skeleton." Given the considerable interest in this fascinating new discovery, I assembled an international team of scientists and submitted a successful 60-hour observing proposal to the highly competitive IRAM 30-m telescope. We will use these data to measure the physical properties and kinematics of our best “Bone" candidate, in order to address the question: What is the physical origin of these “Bones?" Over the next decade, I will 1) expand our sample of “Bones of the Milky Way" into the 100s and piece them together to uncover the full “Skeleton" of our Galaxy, and 2) compare the physical properties and kinematics we measure with Galactic-scale simulations to understand the physical origin of the “Bones of the Milky Way."