| 1. |
- Eriksson, Urban, et al.
(författare)
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Who needs 3D when the Universe is flat?
- 2012
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Ingår i: Gordon Research Conference Astronomy's Discoveries and Physics Education, June 17-22, 2012. - Waterville : Colby Collage.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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| 2. |
- Linder, Cedric, et al.
(författare)
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The overlooked challenge of learning to extrapolate three-dimensionality
- 2013
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Ingår i: Book of Abstracts. - : Charles University.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Learning astronomy has many learning challenges due to the highly diverse, conceptual, and theoretical thinking used in the discipline. One taken for granted challenge is the learning to extrapolate three-dimensionality. Although we have the ability to see our surroundings in threedimensional terms, beyond a distance of about 200m this ability quickly becomes very limited. So, when looking up at the night sky, learning to discern critical features that are embedded in dimensionality does not come easily. There have been several articles addressing how fruitful 3D simulations are for astronomy education, but they do not address what students discern, nor the nature of that discernment. Taking the concept of discernment to be about noticing something and assigning meaning to it, our research question is: In terms of dimensionality, what do astronomy/physics students and professors discern when engaging with a simulated video flythrough of our Galaxy and beyond?A web-based questionnaire was designed using links to video clips drawn from a well-regarded simulation-video of travel through our galaxy and beyond. 137 physics and astronomy university students and teaching professors, who were drawn from nine countries, completed the questionnaire. The descriptions provided by them were used to formulate six categories of discernment in relation to multidimensionality. These results are used to make the case that astronomy learning that aims at developing the ability to extrapolate three-dimensionality needs to be grounded in the creation of meaningful motion parallax experiences. Teaching and learning implications are discussed.
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| 3. |
- Eriksson, Urban, et al.
(författare)
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Watching the sky : new realizations, new meanings, and surprizing aspects in university level astronomy
- 2011
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Ingår i: E-Book Proceedings of the ESERA 2011 Conference. - Lyon, France : European Science Education Research Association. - 9789963700448 ; , s. 57-63, s. 57-63
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Learning astronomy is challenging at all levels due to the highly specialized form of communication used to share knowledge. When taking astronomy courses at different levels at university, learners are exposed to a variety of representations that are intended to help them learn about the structure and complexity of the Universe. However, not much is known about the reflective awareness that these representations evoke. Using a simulation video that provides a vivid virtual journey through our Milky Way galaxy, the nature of this awareness is captured and categorised for an array of learners (benchmark by results obtained for experts). The results illustrate how the number and nature of new things grounded in dimensionality, scale, time and perspective reflective awareness can too easily be taken for granted by both teachers and learners.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Eriksson, Urban, et al.
(författare)
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Awareness of the three dimensional structure of the Universe
- 2013
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Ingår i: The 21st Annual Conference of the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa, 14 - 17 January, 2013. - Cape Town, South Africa : SAARMSTE.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Learning astronomy can be difficult for students at all levels due to the highly diverse, conceptual and theoretical thinking used in the discipline. A variety of disciplinary-specific representations are normally employed to help students learn about the Universe. Some of the most common representations are two-dimensional (2D) such as diagrams, plots, or images. In astronomy education there is an implicit assumption that students will be able to conceptually extrapolate three-dimensional (3D) representations from these 2D images (e.g., of nebulae); however, this is often not the case (Hansen, Barnett, MaKinster, & Keating, 2004a, 2004b; Molina, Redondo, Bravo, & Ortega, 2004; N.R.C, 2006; Williamson & Abraham, 1995).Simulation videos are often called on to dynamically introduce students to the structure and complexity of the Universe. We therefore chose to investigate, drawing on a range of educational experience, the nature of the reflective awareness evoked by being exposed to an array of 3D representations taken from a well-used simulation video in astronomy education. A key concept for this work is the notion of disciplinary affordances. Fredlund, Airey, and Linder (2012, p. 658) define the disciplinary affordances of a given representation as ―the inherent potential of that representation to provide access to disciplinary knowledge‖. Recent reviews indicate that most of the work done in astronomy education has taken place at a pre-university level and that none has focussed on disciplinary affordance vis-à-vis 3D representation (Bailey, 2011; Bailey & Slater, 2003; Bretones & Neto, 2011; Lelliott & Rollnick, 2010). The work reported here addresses both these shortcomings. The simulation video used in our study was originally created by Brent Tully. After a pilot study a section of the video was selected to be cut into 7 clips (about 15s each). These clips formed the framing of a web survey that asked participants to write down their reflective awareness following after viewing of each video clip, for e.g. what comes to mind, things noticed, new realizations, etc. A total of 137 participants from university physics and astronomy settings in Europe (42), North America (76), South Africa (3) and Australia (16) took part in the web survey (79 men and 58 women). The reflective descriptions from the survey were coded and used to construct categories, using a hermeneutic constant comparison approach (cf. Gibbs, 2002; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). A limited number of categories emerged and were grouped under the overarching theme we decided to call Parallax. This was because Parallax captured all the statements reflecting awareness of the structural and positional affordances offered by the 3D-video. The analysis showed qualitative differences between the categories, where 3D refers to the highest level of awareness and Speed, travel or motion refers to the lowest level. There are also sub-categories, for e.g., for Speed, travel or motion there are two main ways of experiencing, either the observers or the observed objects, are described in terms of moving in a relative way. Many of the novice participants expressed poor prior awareness of the 3D structure of the universe and surprise by the extent of the grand scale of the (local) Universe. In contrast, those participants who rated themselves as astronomy experts had already developed a 3D awareness of the universe. They used much more complex descriptions and to some extent commented on structures and phenomena omitted from the simulation, such as HI-regions and infrared radiation from HII-regions, although these are invisible to the naked eye. The results show that these kinds of vividly visual and engaging simulations have the potential to provide new disciplinary knowledge for reflective learners in the field of astronomy. Such learning can be characterized as attaining a better appreciation of the disciplinary affordances of the representations used in the simulation. As a conclusion we will discuss how such engagement could open the way for astronomy students to learn more meaningfully about the structure and complexity of the Universe.
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| 6. |
- Eriksson, Urban, 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, 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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| 8. |
- Eriksson, Urban, et al.
(författare)
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Tell me what you see : Differences in what is discerned when professors and students view the same disciplinary semiotic resource
- 2014
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Ingår i: The 5th international 360° conference: Encompassing the Multimodality of Knowledge, May 8-10 2014, Aarhus.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Traditionally, astronomy and physics have been viewed as difficult subjects to master. The movement from everyday conceptions of the world around us to a disciplinary interpretation is fraught with pitfalls and problems. What characterises a disciplinary insider’s discernment of phenomena in astronomy and how does it compare to the views of newcomers to the field? In this paper we report on a study into what students and professors discern (cf. Eriksson et al, in press) from the same disciplinary semiotic resource and use this to propose an Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment (ADD) as an overarching characterization of disciplinary learning.Students and professors in astronomy and physics were asked to describe what they could discern from a simulation video of travel through our Galaxy and beyond (Tully, 2012). In all, 137 people from nine countries participated. The descriptions were analysed using a hermeneutic, constant comparison approach (Seebohm, 2004; Strauss, 1987). Analysis culminated in the formulation of five hierarchically arranged, qualitatively different categories of discernment. This ADD modelling of the data consists of one non-disciplinary category and four levels of disciplinary discernment: Identification, Explanation, Appreciation, and Evaluation. Our analysis demonstrates a clear relationship between educational level and the level of disciplinary discernment.The analytic outcomes of the study suggest that teachers may create more effective learning environments by explicitly crafting their teaching to support the discernment of various aspects of disciplinary semiotic resources in order to facilitate the crossing of boundaries in the ADD model.
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| 9. |
- Eriksson, Urban, et al.
(författare)
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The Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment : An argument for a spiral trajectory of learning in physics education
- 2014
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Ingår i: The First Conference of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS). - Lund.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Traditionally, physics has been viewed as a difficult subject to master. The movement from everyday conceptions of the world around us to a disciplinary interpretation is fraught with problems. What characterises this disciplinary development from learner to expert? In this presentation we report on a study involving what students and professors discern from a disciplinary representation and use this to propose an Anatomy of Disciplinary Discernment (ADD) as an overarching characterization of disciplinary learning. To do this we bring together three important educational ideas – first, Bruner’s (1960) notion of the spiral curriculum. Second, Fredlund, Airey, and Linder’s (2012) notion of disciplinary affordances -- the ‘inherent potential of a representation to provide access to disciplinary knowledge’. Thirdly Eriksson, Linder, Airey, and Redfors’ (2013) notion of disciplinary discernment -- noticing something (eg. Mason, 2002), reflecting on it (Schön, 1983), and constructing (disciplinary) meaning (Marton & Booth, 1997).Students in astronomy and their teaching professors were asked to describe what they discerned from a simulation video of travel through our galaxy and beyond. In all, 137 people from nine countries participated. The descriptions were analysed using a standard interpretive study approach (Erickson, 1986; Gallagher, 1991). This resulted in the formulation of five qualitatively different categories of discernment.We found that these categories of disciplinary discernment could be arranged into an anatomy of hierarchically increasing levels of disciplinary discernment and subsequently the idea of ADD with a unit of analysis being the discernment of disciplinary affordance. The ADD modelling for the data incorporated four increasing levels disciplinary discernment: Identification, Explanation, Appreciation, and Evaluation. The visualization of the analysis demonstrates a clear relationship between educational level and the level of disciplinary discernment. Hence, the ADD can be seen to be related to Bruner’s concept of the spiral curriculum idea and through this relationship projects a learning trajectory that students experience while moving through the educational system.The analytic outcomes of the study suggest how teachers may gain insight into how to create more effective learning environments for students to successfully negotiate a required learning trajectory by explicitly crafting the teaching to support the crossing of boundaries.
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| 10. |
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