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 were asked on reading textbook chapters and previewing presentations on reviewing the history of astronomy, Kepler's and Newton's laws, and telescope powers.
Selected/edited responses are given below.
Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
"I like thinking of the days when Kepler and Newton were making their laws. It must been pretty exciting to create some of the first correct models of the solar system..."Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"Learning how telescopes work was pretty badass. I'm looking forward to rating telescopes in class by their light gathering power, resolving power and magnifying power."
"How much controversy Galileo's telescopic discoveries created, and how some were offended by these discoveries."
"Galileo's true relationship with the telescope was really interesting because I had always been led to believe that he had invented it."
"That for about 1,500 years people accepted Aristotle's First Principle and Ptolemy's geocentric model as accurate descriptions of events in the universe. If people believed Aristotle was so great, why were his ideas about the universe so wrong?"
"Some of the math involved with telescope powers seems a little tedious."Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"How do I keep track of all the astronomers? I can't keep them straight! All that history is probably still the worst part about astronomy. Less history, more science!"
"It's strange that early astronomers used first principles and people just accepted them."
"Keplers's laws of planetary motion and Newton's three laws of motion. I understand the origins of both sets of laws, but I need some help understanding what each law means and how they relate to each other."
"The different types of telescopes and how some are better than the others, since wouldn't they all see the same object?"
"How did you come up with the website called waiferx.com? Does it mean something?" (Waifer X is one of the main characters of an online comic strip I drew 10-15 years ago, back when online comic strips was a thing before becoming a thing.)
"You ask us a question, this relationship is very one-sided." (That is why I'm trying to get you to ask (more) questions of me.)
"Learning a lot of things about astronomy is mind-blowing (in a good way)!" (Once that happens, then my job is officially done.)
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