NASA: Center for Astronomy Education Teaching Excellence Workshops

The Center for Astronomy Education, or CAE, announces a series of educator workshops for astronomy and space science educators. Advanced workshops are available for participants who have taken part in previous CAE workshops.

The overarching goal of these workshops is for participants to become familiar with research-validated active engagement teaching strategies and assessment materials, as well as how to implement them in their college courses, through role-playing, modeling, practice, and more! To accomplish this goal, participants will learn how to create productive learning environments beginning with a brief review of research on the nature of teaching and learning. Most workshop time will be spent with participants playing the roles of student, instructor and critical friend to practice implementing active engagement strategies such as interactive lectures, think-pair-share, interactive demonstrations and videos, collaborative groups, lecture-tutorials and ranking tasks. CAE is funded through the NASA JPL Exoplanet Exploration Program.

May 5, 2012 — Oceanside, Calif.
Southern California Regional Teaching Exchange

May 19-20, 2012 — Holly Springs, Miss.
Improving the College Introductory Courses Through Active Engagement: A Tier I (Introductory) Workshop

June 9-10, 2012 — Anchorage, Alaska
Improving the College Introductory Courses Through Active Engagement: A Tier I (Introductory) Workshop

June 10, 2012 — Anchorage, Alaska
NASA CAE Tier II (Advanced) Special Topics Workshop: Using Technology in the Classroom

For more information and to register for workshops online, visit http://astronomy101.jpl.nasa.gov/workshops/index.cfm.

Inquiries about this series of workshops should be directed to Gina Brissenden at gbrissenden@as.arizona.edu.