| 1. |
- Persson, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Planetarium software in the classroom
- 2016
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Ingår i: Physics Education. - : Institute of Physics (IOP). - 0031-9120 .- 1361-6552. ; 51:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Students often find astronomy and astrophysics to be most interesting and exciting, but the Universe is difficult to access using only one's eyes or simple equipment available at different educational settings. To open up the Universe and enhance learning astronomy and astrophysics different planetarium software can be used. In this article we discuss the usefulness of such simulation software and give four examples of how such software can be used for teaching and learning astronomy and astrophysics.
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| 2. |
- Eriksson, Urban, Lektor i fysik med inriktning mot fysikdidaktik, 1968-
(författare)
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Disciplinary discernment : reading the sky in astronomy education
- 2019
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Ingår i: Physical review physics education research. - : American Physical Society. - 2469-9896. ; 15:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This theoretical paper introduces a new way to view and characterize learning astronomy. It describes a framework, based on results from empirical data, analyzed through standard qualitative research method- ology, in which a theoretical model for a vital competency of learning astronomy is proposed: reading the sky, a broad description under with various skills and competencies are included. This model takes into account not only disciplinary knowledge but also disciplinary discernment and extrapolating three dimensionality. Together, these constitute the foundation for the competency referred to as reading the sky. In this paper, these competencies are described and discussed and merged to form a new framework vital for learning astronomy to better match the challenges students face when entering the discipline of astronomy.
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| 3. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Disciplinary discernment in astronomy education : Hertzsprung-Russell-diagrams
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper aim at investigating what astronomy students and experts discern from the multitude of different disciplinary affordances available in Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagrams. HR-diagrams are central to all of astronomy and astrophysics and used extensively in teaching. However, knowledge about what students and experts discern from these disciplinary representations are not well known at present. HR-diagrams include many disciplinary affordances that may be hidden to the novice student, hence we aim at investigating and describing what astronomy students at different university levels (introductory, undergraduate, graduate), and astronomy educators/professors, discern from such representation – referred to as disciplinary discernment. Data from a web based questionnaire were analysed using the Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment (ADD) framework by Eriksson et al.(2014). Preliminary results show (1) the developmental nature of disciplinary discernment from the HR-diagram by the participants and (2) the large discrepancy between disciplinary discernment by the astronomy educators and their students. We describe and discuss the qualitative nature of these differences and implications for teaching and learning astronomy.
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| 4. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Extrapolation of 3D and its importance for teaching and learning physics and astronomy : an example from astrophysics
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Learning astronomy at higher level can be both exciting and challenging. Entering the discipline of astronomy involves learning the way that astronomers communicate knowledge, using a multitude of disciplinary specific semiotic recourses to understand the multidimensional universe. A new-to-the-discipline student will need to learn to “read” and “write” all these resources in her endeavour to learn astronomy and become part of the discipline. In this paper, we present a study where university students and professors are presented by different 2D and pseudo-3D resources—representations of astronomical objects—and asked about how these objects may look in 3D, i.e. we ask them to extrapolate three-dimensionality from 2D inputs. These inputs are 2D pictorial representation and world-class 3D rotating volumetric models presented on flat screens. Data were collected using a web-based questionnaire from 53 participants in four different countries. From the results, we find that all participants struggle to find cues for depth perception in the 2D pictorial representations. As could be expected, the student participants were much worse in doing so than the astronomers, but with one exception: students used the offered motion parallax as their main cue when this was available. The astronomers used many cues in their struggle to perceive depth but surprisingly did not use the presented parallax motion to a large extent. We interpret this as follows: for the students, they lack the knowledge to use disciplinary cues and used the only cue that they know from experience, namely, parallax motion. For the astronomers, they used a multitude of disciplinary cues based on their extensive disciplinary knowledge, and did not find the new cue, motion parallax, as useful as the ones that they were used to use. In this paper, we present and discuss these results and its implication for teaching astronomy.
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| 5. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-
(författare)
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Reading the sky and the spiral of teaching and learning in astronomy
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teaching and learning astronomy is known to be both exciting and challenging. To learn astronomy demands not only disciplinary knowledge, but also ability to discern affordances from disciplinary specific representations used within the discourse, which we call disciplinary discernment, and ability to think spatially, which we refer to as extrapolating three-dimensionality from a two dimensional input. Disciplinary knowledge involves all the knowledge that constitutes the discipline, disciplinary discernment involves discernment of the affordances of disciplinaryspecific representations, and extrapolating three-dimensionality involves the ability to visualize in ones mind how a three-dimensional astronomical object may look from a two-dimensional input (image or simulation). In this paper we argue that these abilities are intertwined and to learn astronomy at any level demands becoming fluent in all three. A framework is presented for how these abilities can be described and combined as a new and innovative way to frame teaching and learning in astronomy for optimizing the learning outcome of students - what we refer to as developing the ability to Read the Sky. We conclude that this is a vital competency needed for learning astronomy and suggest strategies for how to implement this to improve astronomy education.
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| 6. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Disciplinary discernment from Hertzsprung-Russell-diagrams
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper aim at investigating what astronomy students and experts discern from the multitude of different disciplinary affordances available in Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagrams. HR-diagrams are central to all of astronomy and astrophysics and used extensively in teaching. However, knowledge about what students and experts discern from these disciplinary representations are not well known at present. HR-diagrams include many disciplinary affordances that may be hidden to the novice student, hence we aim at investigating and describing what astronomy students at different university levels (introductory, undergraduate, graduate), and astronomy educators/professors, discern from such representation – referred to as disciplinary discernment (Eriksson, Linder, Airey, & Redfors, 2014). Data from a web based questionnaire were analysed using the Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment (ADD) framework by Eriksson et al. (2014). Preliminary results show (1) the developmental nature of disciplinary discernment from the HR-diagram by the participants and (2) the large discrepancy between disciplinary discernment by the astronomy educators and their students. We describe and discuss the qualitative nature of these differences and how this can have implications for teaching and learning astronomy.
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| 7. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-
(författare)
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Från Stjärnfläckar till Stjärnobservationer : bland galaxer, stjärnor, planeter och tankar kring dessa
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Att lära sig astronomi, eller naturvetenskap över lag, involverar så mycket och kan liknas vid att lära sig ett nytt språk. Eleven måste lära sig detta språk och det innefattar, förutom skrivet och talat fackspråk, en mängd mer eller mindre begripliga sk representationerna, aktiviteter och verktyg. Det är därför en grannlaga uppgift att lära sig naturvetenskap och eleverna behöver hjälp med att lära sig naturvetenskapens språk. Det sker i allmänhet samtidigt som de lär sig ämnet, men jag kommer att prata om att det krävs träning av vissa speciella färdigheter för att underlätta denna process. Detta involverar disciplinärt urskiljande samt multidimensionellt tänkande. Jag kommer att beskriva ett teoretiskt ramverk, med praktiska exempel från astronomins värld, på hur detta kan ske.
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| 8. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-
(författare)
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“Reading” representations : what does this have to do with teaching and learning physics?
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Learning physics can be compared to learning a new language in several respects. This includes learning to “read and write” the representations that carry the meaning of the language. In the case of physics these representations include text, gestures, mathematics, graphs, images, simulations and animations. For those who are fluent in the language, these representations are full of meaning but for the novice learning to discern the relevant disciplinary aspects of these representations (disciplinary discernment) can be a struggle. Research has shown that often teachers assume that students “see” the same things in a representation that they do. However, this is usually not true. Learning to discern disciplinary aspects of representations is something that students need help with (scaffolding). One important aspect of learning representational fluency in physics is that of spatial thinking, in particular learning to extrapolate three-dimensionality from one- and two-dimensional representations.In this talk I will present a theoretical framework describing the process of teaching and learning representational disciplinary fluency. I will also provide some examples to illustrate the framework, from the perspectives of the instructor and the student.
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| 9. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-
(författare)
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Reading the Sky and The Spiral of Teaching and Learning in Astronomy
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Teaching and learning astronomy is known to be both exciting and challenging. To learn astronomy demands not only disciplinary knowledge, but also the ability to discern meaning from disciplinary specific representations (disciplinary discernment). This includes the ability to think spatially, in particular, extrapolating three-dimensionality from a one- or two-dimensional input i.e. to be able to visualize in one’s mind how a three-dimensional astronomical object may look from a one- or two-dimensional input such as from a visual image or a mathematical representation. In this talk I demonstrate that these abilities are deeply intertwined, and that to learn astronomy at any level demands becoming fluent in all three aspects (disciplinary knowledge, disciplinary discernment and spatial thinking). A framework is presented for how these competencies can be described, and combined, as a new and innovative way to frame teaching and learning in astronomy. It is argued that using this framework “Reading the Sky” optimizes the learning outcomes for students. The talk also suggests strategies for how to implement this approach for improving astronomy teaching and learning overall.
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| 10. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 1968-
(författare)
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Teaching and learning in astronomy education – a spiral approach to reading the sky
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teaching and learning astronomy is known to be both exciting and challenging. However, learning astronomy at university level is a demanding task for many students. The learning pro-cess involves not only disciplinary knowledge, but also the ability to discern affordances from disciplinary specific representations used within the astronomy discourse, which we call discipli-nary discernment (Eriksson, Linder, Airey, & Redfors, 2014a) and ability to think spatially, which we refer to as extrapolating three-dimensionality from a two dimensional input (Eriksson, Linder, Airey, & Redfors, 2014b). Disciplinary knowledge involves all the knowledge that con-stitutes the discipline, disciplinary discernment involves discernment of the affordances of disci-plinary-specific representations, and extrapolating three-dimensionality involves the ability to visualize in ones mind how a three-dimensional astronomical object may look from a two-dimensional input (image or simulation). In this paper we argue that these abilities are inter-twined and to learn astronomy at any level demands becoming fluent in all three abilities. A framework is presented for how these abilities can be described and combined as a new and in-novative way to frame teaching and learning in astronomy at university level for optimizing the learning outcome of students - what we refer to as developing the ability of Reading the Sky (Eriksson, 2014). We conclude that this is a vital competency needed for learning astronomy and suggest strategies for how to implement this to improve astronomy education.ReferencesEriksson, Urban. (2014). Reading the Sky - From Starspots to Spotting Stars. (Doctor of Philosophy), Uppsala University, Uppsala. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-234636 Eriksson, Urban, Linder, Cedric, Airey, John, & Redfors, Andreas. (2014a). Introducing the Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment - An example for Astronomy. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2(3), 167-182. Eriksson, Urban, Linder, Cedric, Airey, John, & Redfors, Andreas. (2014b). Who needs 3D when the Universe is flat? Science Education, 98(3), 31.
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