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Session 39 - Astronomy Education.
Display session, Tuesday, June 09
Atlas Ballroom,
American Astronomical Society Teacher Resource Agent Institutes were held in the summers of 1994-1996. From the 215 Agents, sixteen were selected to attend a follow-up leadership workshop for three weeks in July, 1997 at University of Texas at Austin. The workshop followed the recommendations of both the AASTRA formative evaluator and the National Science Education Standards in allowing the participants time to reflect on their practice as teachers and as teacher-leaders. At no financial charge to the project, the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory contributed three workshops of three hours each. These workshops, plus one given by the PI, were taken from "Facilitating Systemic Change in Science and Mathematics Education : A Toolkit for Professional Developers" [ISBN 1-878234-08-0]. In addition, McDonald Observatory contributed six nights of telescope time on the 30-inch telescope with a CCD prime focus camera. In Austin, several astronomers lectured on their research; most of the lectures correlated with the research projects in progress at the Observatory during the teachers’ observing run. Several observers allowed the teachers to participate in their observing sessions on the larger telescopes. Participant evaluation of the Leadership Workshop was very positive, both in terms of enhancing their self-image as leaders, enriching their repertoire of activities to use within their classrooms, and introducing them to modern astronomical research techniques.
AASTRA is supported by NSF under grant ESI 93- 53377 and the AAS. Additional support is provided by Loyola University of Chicago, Northern Arizona University of Flagstaff, University of Maryland at College Park, and the University of Texas at Austin.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: marykay@astro.as.utexas.edu
