Online

I regularly teach survey of astronomy courses online, in a few different forms. The course prep showcased on this page is a lecture-only survey of astronomy that covers the history of astronomy, laws of motion, solar system, stars, galaxies, and cosmology.  

I also teach a fully online survey of astronomy course with a lab component and have taught a fully online lecture course that focuses specifically on the solar system.  My specialty is black holes and galaxy evolution, so it would be quick to develop a course that follows this structure and focuses on stars, galaxies, and extragalactic astronomy.

Sample Syllabus

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

Modules

Material is presented in weekly modules, which are published on Sundays.  The layout of a typical module is shown to the right.  

The week's material begins with an overview, which briefly introduces the topic and lists tasks, applicable SLOs, assignments, and due dates.  An example of a weekly overview is shown below.

Under the "Resources" tab, students will find the materials for that week's lesson.  The Reading Outline is a brief overview of the assigned reading for the week.  It walks students through the chapter, highlighting key points and providing extra video content not found in the book.  Lecture videos and slides are posted in this section as well.  

Tasks for the week are presented in the following section.  The assignments indicated by the red box appear each week and most are designed to accompany the assigned reading.  Each week, I include an activity.  In this sample, the activity is a discussion about the building of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea.  

Selected Lectures

Our Place in the Universe

Reading Outline 1_ Our Place in the Universe_ ASTR-5-17-21546.202320.pdf

Our Place in the Universe Lecture Video

Telescopes

Reading Outline 3_ Light and Telescopes_ ASTR-5-17-21546.202320.pdf

Telescopes Video Lecture

Assignments

Reading Assignments

Each weekly reading is accompanied by the following three assignments: 

These weekly assignments are largely the same as last year, so  a more detailed description and examples can be found here.

This year, I realized that the Three Questions assignment is a great opportunity for class discussion.  Around Week 9, I transitioned from a text submission assignment to a class-wide discussion, where students are asked to respond to at least two classmates for full credit.  

Discussions

At least every week, I post a discussion topic.   This year, I updated the Mauna Kea discussion by adding more clear prompts and recording a video summarizing the scientific justification for building the telescope.  The recorded video ties concepts they learned about telescopes during the lecture to the tricky problem of choosing an ideal site for a telescope.

Topic_ Discussion 2 - Mauna Kea - Section 1.pdf

Three Questions from This Week

I got the idea for this assignment from my undergraduate, upper division Mechanics class, where our professor would ask us to submit three questions from the assigned reading.  The questions added a level of accountability that I didn't experience with normal reading assignments, and it forced me to read more carefully to come up with thoughtful questions.  It was one of the most memorable assignments from my undergraduate education and is now my favorite assignment to grade.  The questions the students ask paint a vivid picture of what they are retaining from the reading, what they are interested in, and what topics I should focus on next.  They also give me great ideas for discussion topics for future preps.  It can be very time consuming but I enjoy putting as much thought into my responses to these questions as the students put into asking them.

At first, I had students submit questions directly to me.  I enjoyed responding to their imaginative questions, but realized that this assignment presents a great opportunity to encourage class discussion.  Now, I assign roughly-weekly discussion forums where students ask questions and respond to at least two classmates for full credit.  This leads to lively discussions and gives students the opportunity to teach each other.

questions submission.pdf
questions discussion.pdf

Self-Directed Activities

When introducing the concept of planetary geology, I assign an activity that demonstrates how impact craters are used to estimate the age of a surface.  In this activity, students are provided satellite images of various regions Martian surface and are asked to estimate the ages of each.  The activity is presented as a Canvas quiz and involves using a Google Doc to show their work.