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Introducing Current Research Into Your Classroom with Astrobites

For educators ranging from graduate students to senior faculty interested in using Astrobites to introduce their students to current astronomy research.

Astrobites is a graduate-student organization (officially supported by the American Astronomical Society) that publishes an online astrophysical literature blog. Since its founding in 2010, the blog has published accessible summaries with useful scientific background and context of more than 2000 articles from the latest peer-reviewed astrophysical literature, aimed at undergraduate physics and astronomy students.

During this session, we will provide an overview of Astrobites and discuss several different ways that you can use Astrobites to bring the most recent astronomical research into your classrooms. We will discuss various methods for introducing students at all levels within the formal higher education setting to approaches and results from modern research. We will provide a sample lesson plan that integrates content and principles from Astrobites, including step-by-step instructions for instructors, suggestions for adapting the lessons to undergraduate to graduate level courses, sample student handouts, and grading rubrics. We suggest attendees bring their laptops to this session.

Programme

• Introducing Astrobites
• An overview of methods for using Astrobites in classrooms
• Sample lesson plans
• Hands-on integration of lesson plans into your own curriculum
• Feedback

Invited speakers

Scientific organisers

Vatsal Panwar, Emma Foxell, Elena González Egea on behalf of the Astrobites collaboration.

Contact

v.panwar @ uva.nl, e.foxell @ warwick.ac.uk