This piece was written by Raquel Martinez, one of UT's graduate students who helps pair up graduate student mentors for each TAURUS Scholar. This year Raquel led a team of UT grad students in the Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators (ISEE) Professional Development Program (PDP), which teaches folks how to design educational experiences around how people learn. This employs the inquiry technique. Raquel describes the TAURUS inquiry experience here.
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UT graduate students Sinclaire Manning (left) and Sam Factor (right) leading
investigations on astrometry and the radial velocity method.
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Every year during the TAURUS program we take a day to expose our scholars to the process of learning through inquiry. A learning experience designed with an inquiry-based approach does not look like the typical college class most are used to—it is not dominated by lectures and the participants are empowered to be in charge of their own learning. This year’s topic: exoplanet detection methods!
The process of inquiry requires instructors (or “facilitators”) to essentially remove themselves from the learning experience as much as possible so that the students gain more ownership of the material they learn. The students pose questions they are most interested in investigating, ultimately answering those question over the course of the activity. It’s no accident that this strategy seems similar to the actions researchers perform. An important aspect of inquiry-based learning is engaging with authentic STEM practices (i.e., generating research questions, explaining results based on evidence) in addition to our core concept of detection methods.
Even though the facilitators intervene minimally during the inquiry activity does not mean they haven’t thought long and hard about how students learn or what the most important aspects of exoplanet detection methods are. The design process started many months ago at the Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators (ISEE) Professional Development Program (PDP). Graduate students Raquel Martinez (Design Team Lead), Sinclaire Manning, and Sam Factor attended two workshops to design this year’s TAURUS inquiry activity and learn about effective inquiry design and using equitable and inclusive practices in the classroom. The design team knew that the TAURUS scholars and UT undergraduate researchers would all have varying astronomy backgrounds coming into the activity and designed it intentionally for everyone to productively participate and ultimately achieve the desired learning outcome.
ISEE has been training graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and professionals in inquiry techniques since 2001. ISEE PDP participants attend two multi-day workshops to collaboratively design an activity which will subsequently be taught in ISEE-affiliated educational programs or courses. PDP participants first learn about inquiry by going through an inquiry activity themselves. Once they have a better idea of what inquiry actually is after the first workshop, the team then focuses on designing their activities at the next workshop. The program originated as part of UCSC’s Center for Adaptive Optics, but has grown to include not just astronomers, but biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, computer scientists and optometrists. This is the 3rdyear that the TAURUS program has been an ISEE PDP venue.
The “Exoplanet Survey Design Challenge” started off with the participants reflecting on plots of results from exoplanet surveys that used different detection methods and considering what science questions the exoplanet hunters were trying to answer.
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(Left): The current census of known exoplanets on a planet mass vs. semi-major axis plot with colors indicating that the exoplanet was discovered using a different detection method. What science questions were astronomers trying to answer with their surveys? (Right): Students reviewing the science questions they raised.
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After this initial brainstorming session and learning a little bit more details about the astrometry and radial velocity detection methods, the students embarked on the culminating final investigation. The participants were divided into teams of three and tasked with proposing their own exoplanet survey. Each group chose a science goal their survey would attempt to achieve, like finding exoplanets in the habitable zone of their host stars or Jupiter-mass exoplanets orbiting very far away from their hosts, then made survey design choices (i.e., spectrograph sensitivity, CCD spatial resolution) that would help them achieve this goal.
The key lesson that the students came to understood was that astronomers intentionally design their surveys with science goals in mind. These science goals require their surveys to probe a specific mass vs. semi-major axis parameter space and thus informs the types of instruments they can use and the detection methods that are required. After presenting their exoplanet survey proposals, the day concluded with a quick summary of everything that the students had learned and how what they did connected to astronomy research and is broadly applicable to other disciplines.
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| Our TAURUS scholars and UT undergraduate researchers present their exoplanet mission proposals. Viyang Shah, Steve Anusie, and Jordan Mascareñas-Wells (left) proposed a radial velocity mission to detect exoplanets in the habitable zones of M dwarf stars. Gerlinder Difo Cheri, Aimee Schechter, and Oscar Canuta (middle) also proposed a radial velocity mission but to detect specifically Jupiter-mass planets in the habitable zones of M dwarf stars. Gabby Sanchez, Analis Lawrence, and Jack Berry (right) proposed an astrometry mission to detect Jupiter-mass planets orbiting ~5 au away from M dwarf stars. |
The activity participants really enjoyed their day telling us they liked the freedom they had to ask and answer their own questions while also not having to already be an astronomy expert. Additionally, many loved how they got to work as a team and benefit from each other’s knowledge to create a proposal for what could actually be a real research project. Sounds like another successful TAURUS inquiry activity in the books!
On August 10th we hosted the third annual TAURUS Scholars' Symposium! The 2018 class of TAURUS Scholars presented their research to the entire department before departing back to their home universities. It was a fun but tearful day saying goodbye to this group. There were lots of adventures had over the course of the summer! The scholars all gave phenomenal talks. Check out their titles and some pictures from the celebrations.
