In Person

I focus on creating visually interesting and interactive lectures that present material not found in the book.  My lectures incorporate many hand drawn slides and multimedia components such as short video clips and Class Action animations.  The text Understanding our Universe by Palen, Kay and Blumenthal is recommended but not required for this class.  The textbook is useful as a reference for background information, but students will only be tested on material we cover together in class.  

Each lecture is accompanied by skeletal notes and includes an active learning activity.  I like to facilitate activities where students work in groups to analyze astronomical data and critically think about the information I present.  This approach closely simulates the real-life process of conducting astronomy research, and allows students to engage fully with the material in an interactive setting. Some examples of in-class worksheets are shown below.  In short, I have students work in small groups to 

Sample Syllabus 

Available upon request.   Reach out to cking012@ucr.edu.

Exams

Each exam consists of a multiple choice and short answer section.  The midterms have 20 multiple choice questions and 4-5 short answer questions, with each section contributing half the total points of the exam.  Last semester's final exam was slightly weighted toward multiple choice questions, with 35 points for multiple choice questions and 20 points for short answer.  The final is cumulative, but focuses on material covered in the last quarter of the semester. 

Selected Lectures

Planetary Geology

This is the updated version of a lecture I presented in my first year portfolio.  This year, I kept a lot of the content of this lecture the same (while addressing the correction Becca gave me during our evaluation meeting last year) but I restructured how I conduct this lecture.  Some advice I received last year on how to improve this lesson included:

This year, I spread this lecture content out over a week, rather than trying to rush through it in a single class session.  There are a few multiple choice questions embedded in the slides.  I also pause to check understanding on nearly each slide by inviting student questions.  After addressing student questions, I prompt discussion or draw their attention to an important detail by asking them questions of my own.  Some open ended questions lend themselves well to a quick pair-share and others are best answered using ABCD notecards I hand out at the start of each class.

7 Planetary Geology.pdf
WS - Planetary Geology.pdf

Galaxies

In this lesson, I begin by setting the stage for the Great Debate and explaining how the discovery of galaxies revolutionized our understanding of the universe.  I then introduce the Hubble Tuning Fork diagram and have students work in groups of 3-4 to classify a set of ten galaxies based on their visible properties.  When we reconvene as a class, I have them share some challenges they had when classifying galaxies.  They notice that their group members sometimes disagree about a classification and find it difficult that they are limited to only one perspective of the galaxy.  We then review some of the more tricky galaxies to classify (Galaxies 3 and 9 typically throw people off).   During this review, I have students identify the visible components of each galaxy and explain how they chose their classifications.

The second half of this lecture focuses on galaxy evolution and understanding how spiral galaxies merge to form elliptical galaxies. 

Galaxies.pdf
WS - Galaxy Classification.pdf

Sample Student Work and Feedback

In-Class Worksheets

Most lectures are accompanied by worksheets.  The worksheets contain a warm-up at the beginning, an activity, and a reflection at the end (full description here).  Below, I'll show some examples of student work on the handouts listed above.

galaxy-.pdf
galaxy+.pdf