20121219

Online reading assignment: final questions/comments (SLO campus)

Astronomy 210, fall semester 2012
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.

The following questions and comments were asked on the last reading assignment of the semester.

Selected/edited responses are given below.

Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"If I have to repeat this course would you recommend taking the lab with it?" (Not unless you are required to satisfy a science laboratory breadth requirement, and/or are very interested in satisfying your curiosity of astronomy and research in science. Otherwise the laboratory is an adjunct course that is not absolutely mandatory for success in lecture.)

"If you could live on any planet besides Earth, which would you choose and why?" (That recently discovered habitable-zone planet around Tau Ceti, 12 light years away, sounds like a pretty interesting place to live.)

"Was Mrs. P-dog really a cheerleader?" (Yes. In my dreams.)

"Since it is the holiday season, maybe you should consider not making the final too challenging. Maybe?" ("...Tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune." --Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Hono)

"Why did you decide to teach astronomy if you have never taken an astronomy course?" (Because even more awesome than being able to learn astronomy, is being able to teach astronomy.)

"At the beginning of this course I stated that I was going to change your perception of what an 'A' student is capable of... Did I succeed?" (Yes. But every one of my 'A' students has surprised me in their own way.)

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