Do NOT launch
Internet Explorer
(or Firefox if that ever works again).
The students will launch that for themselves.
If necessary, set the homepage to the
Course Website / Syllabus
(i.e.,
Introductory Astronomy Laboratory (AKA astlab)
which can be found by googling "jeffery astlab")
and bookmark Wikipedia
on all the computers.
Introduce yourself to the students as they come in and get their names.
You should arrange their names
on a nonce seating plan.
Actually, every night get a nonce seating plan.
This helps with names and is your attendance record.
You will need an attendance record.
Sometimes we have to know whether or not a student actually attended a particular lab.
Chat if possible.
Begin at 7:30 pm sharp.
I'm your section instructor
David Jeffery:
So say it all together now, 1, 2, 3: .
Tonight we will do an orientation that starts by going over the
Course Site / Syllabus
plus some intructor-specific modifications.
We then do a brief orientation to
TheSky
software.
While we are doing these orientations, we are also doing a computer orientation.
Jump in with any questions at any itme.
Jump in with any questions at any time in the whole semester, of course.
No groups of 4 people, unless there is no other way.
Introduce yourselves to your new friends.
Someone will have to steer the mouse first, but you should change drivers
frequently to give everyone the learning experience.
You can always find the Course Website / Syllabus
by googling "jeffery astlab".
Many of the questions and data required to complete the lab reports
can be found at Wikipedia.
It's usually the first reference for me.
Before a lab, I'll usually be around by 6:30 pm and have the lab room open by 7:00 pm.
However, I might have to leave the lab room locked if I have to be up on the roof
setting up the telescopes---by the way,
our telescopes are
Celestron C8's.
They do this because they think it the better way at least for their
style of teaching.
Also no syllabus of reasonable length can include all the details
of actual lab practice.
Some of the modifications and additions just turn up as we go along.
However, here are the biggies for starters:
Everyone is required to hand in their own complete lab report form
(with all group member names on it)
printed out from the lab exercise web page
(e.g., Lab 1: Constellations: Report).
However, the reports of people who worked as a group are often extremely similar.
It's thus very inefficient and tedious to mark all group members in detail.
So each group designates one report form to be marked in detail.
This report form is the
favorite report form.
The other report forms from the group are checked for completeness.
If they are complete, they receive the same mark as the
favorite report form.
If they are not complete, there will be some mark deductions.
If there is no
designated favorite report form,
then yours truly will choose to one: i.e., the
report from the group that looks best from a superficial examination
and/or has the extra printouts or pages generated during the lab.
We usually work in groups of three.
Groups of two are allowed if there is room.
Groups of four are ONLY allowed if we have more than 24 people in the classroom---which usually
only happens if we have a lot of makeups from other sections.
This is probably efficient at generating the reports, but it is NOT efficient for maximum learning.
The easiest way to break the same-role syndrome is to require
that you work in different groups every lab.
So every lab, you must find new partners.
So you should look around and give two new people a
come-hither look.
By the end of the semester, we will all be friends
and will find it easy to help each other.
There are preparations for every lab given in the lab exercise itself:
see lab schedule.
Students should do those preparations before they come to the lab.
Or at least they should arrive early to the lab and do them before the lab.
There will be a quiz almost every week based on the preparation.
The quiz might be omitted some weeks for some reason.
But students will NOT know that in advance, UNLESS the instructor explicitly
says so.
It's menu-driven like
most software you are familar with,
and so all you need to do is get used to the items.
It's NOT like ENIAC.
There are two versions of the
TheSky,
and so two orientations:
Now on to
TheSky orientations:
So just open
TheSkyX
on the desktop
and push all the buttons.
Only do this orientation if the
instructor so directs---or
if you really want to.
Be warned: it seems that NOT all settings for
TheSky6
are quite the same.
There is a preparation for every lab as stated above.
You NEVER print out the full lab exercise in the lab.
It's long and meant to be an interactive web document.
You can print out your own copy at home if you like.
What you will print out
Lab 1: Constellations: report form
if you like tonight to have a look at it, but usually you should print out lab report forms
just before the lab period since the lab exercises are continually being updated.
Do NOT turn off the computers or the screens.
Turn on all the computers and log on to them.
You need to learn the student names and it's best to start early.
Be cheerful and friendly.
Welcome all to Intro Astronomy Laboratory Ast 105.
Write some of the instructor information below on the board, but not all.
We will look at my
Instructor Information and Preliminary Schedule itself when covering the
Course Site / Syllabus.
You-all should call me . It's mandatory.
It's hard to call your elders by their first names, but at some point you have to face up to it.
In particular, see:
The section instructors are allowed to make small modifications and
additions to the
syllabus.
The
favorite report form
has (and the other report forms do NOT have) any extra printouts or pages generated during the lab
(e.g., plots, tables of data, etc.).
The favorite report form
should be labeled the favorite report form
or labeled "Grade me".
Now if the same people always work together, then they easily fall
into the particular roles and always do the same thing in their group.
I will be keeping track of who's working with whom
and break up old friends---you'll have new friends.
We will now do a brief self-orientation to
TheSky
software.
Yours truly will circulate in TA mode as you-all work through the steps below.
Under construction:
There is a prepartion for next week when we do our first lab.
Until next time ave atque vale.