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Reflections On Teaching Introductory Astronomy Online During The COVID-19 Pandemic And Some Best Practice Recommendations

Published onJun 01, 2020
Reflections On Teaching Introductory Astronomy Online During The COVID-19 Pandemic And Some Best Practice Recommendations

Introductory astronomy college courses are very popular general education offerings for non-science majors. They are offered as a one semester/term survey course or separate semester-long solar system and stars, galaxies, universe courses, with or without lab. These courses are delivered in face-to-face, online or hybrid formats. In Spring 2020, instructors had to move their face-to-face and hybrid classes to the online format in an emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many college science teachers did not have online teaching experience, and had to their move courses online without undergoing training to teach online and to develop their courses appropriately. Some instructors may continue to teach online in the summer with not enough guidance. Student learning could be affected because their instructors are underprepared to teach online. In this poster, I will share and reflect on my experience of moving my “ASTR 101” and “Life in the Universe” face-to-face general education lecture classes online in Spring 2020. My perspective is that of a community college instructor who has both face-to-face and online teaching experience. I will offer some recommendations for successful online delivery when the usual online teaching training and course development procedures are unavailable.

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