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PAUL J. GREEN - Contributing ConcepTests

BUILDING a LIBRARY of CONCEPTESTS
for INTRODUCTORY UNDERGRADUATE ASTRONOMY

I'm glad you're interested in collaborating on the ConcepTests for Astronomy WWW database project! It's getting easier and easier as the database builds up. Folks who submit 10 or more appropriate questions to the database will be given a password to the WWW site.

The seed for the database is several hundred questions of my own. I expect that the site will be organic and growing (i.e. will benefit from additions and edits), especially in the initial phases. I'm sure we'll all benefit from its use, particularly if it is kept within the community of interest (instructors). Dissemination that is too widespread threatens the effectiveness (and evaluation) of the method. Evaluation will be important to further improve the method, and to promote its use.

I'm looking forward to your contributions! Please check the tally of the number of questions so far included (by filename). Contributions are most valued where numbers are small! Please make sure to check all contributions carefully for accuracy, completeness and of course, spelling and grammar. As 'managing editor' I will read all contributions critically. For obvious reasons of copyright infringement, I strongly discourage submission of non-original material. Since I can't check every book, I will not be held liable.

As part of the book contract with Prentice Hall, this WWW database will remain accessible. However, as is reasonable, the publisher wants to avoid liability, and I certainly want to avoid any surprises or misunderstandings. That's why I'm writing to ask your explicit permission to publish what you submit in the book. In the book as with the WWW pages, all contributing authors will be prominently acknowledged, but each question cannot be individually credited. Note that not all ConcepTests that are submitted will appear in either place, and many may be edited as well. I will be contributing by far the largest number of ConcepTests, and attempting to gear them wherever possible towards common misconceptions, as should you!

thanks!
Paul

How to Contribute ConcepTests

There are 3 kinds of questions that are particularly useful in the Peer Instruction method. Here we solicit and provide only ConcepTests.

1) Reading quizes.

These are simple checks that students have read the book, and can be short factual multiple choice questions. They are a very useful component of Peer Instruction, since they free the teacher to work with concepts rather than facts. Since reading quizzes are easy to produce and test-dependent, they are NOT emphasized here for the database.

2) ConcepTests.

Quick, conceptual, multiple-choice questions that can be used for two purposes simultaneously; a) To quickly gauge student comprehension during a class lecture, allowing real-time adaptation of the lecture, and b) To challenge students to confront misconceptions by discussing conceptual puzzles with peers in a collaborative atmosphere. If you contribute, we GREATLY appreciate a format similar to that below, with answers marked as shown, and ASCII email is the preferred method of transfer. Otherwise, we can adapt your format.

Constellations in astronomy are
a) physical grouping of genuinely associated stars.
$b) arbitrary but useful subdivisions of the sky.
c) a conjuncture of planets.
d) the most accurate way to predict the future.

Why does the relationship between recession velocity and distance (the Hubble relation) hold well only over very large distances, and not, say, in our own galaxy or within a large cluster of galaxies?
a) On small scales, galaxies don't move much relative to one another.
$b) On small scales the influence of local gravitational effects is far greater than the influence of expansion.
c) The Universe only expands on large scales, not on small scales.
d) Space-time only curves on large scales.
e) There are too few objects (e.g. stars and galaxies) close to us to enable us to state a Hubble relation with any confidence.

To determine if a star in the sky is more luminous than our sun, you would need to know:
a) how fast it is moving
b) how far away it is
$c) how bright it looks from here and how far away it is
d) how fast it is moving and how far away it is
e) how bright it looks from here and its diameter

Brown dwarfs are
$a) too small to initiate hydrogen fusion.
b) the aftermath of red giant contraction.
c) among the youngest protostars.
d) expected to pair with white dwarfs rather than each other.

Star clusters are useful to stellar astronomers because the clusters
$a) contain stars that are all about the same age.
b) contain stars of a wide variety of ages
c) contain stars all at the same stage of stellar evolution.

Life is less likely to evolve on planets around massive
main sequence stars because massive stars
a) pull planets inward wth their powerful gravity
b) engulf planets inside their large radii
$c) cease nuclear burning in a time shorter than evolution timescales
d) heat planets until they evaporate

The main sequence extends from
$a) high luminosity, high temperature to low luminosity, low temperature
b) high luminosity, low temperature to low luminosity, low temperature
c) high luminosity, low temperature to low luminosity, high temperature
d) high luminosity, high temperature to low luminosity high temperature.

As a massive star collapses, the gravitational field on the stellar surface
a) doubles
$b) increases strongly
c) decreases with the square of the decreasing size
d) remains the same.

If the sun were suddenly to be replaced by a solar-mass black hole the earth would
$a) remain in the same orbit
b) move into a much smaller orbit
c) be pulled into the black hole and disappear
d) suddenly disappear

3) Exam questions.

The other kind of useful question is the type that can be used as a conceptual question on an exam. In my view, both calculational and conceptual questions should be included in exams, but the former are easier for the instructor to write. To prevent a plug-and-chug approach to learning, some instructors may prefer to provide students with a brief list of formulas, so that student emphasis is on concepts, not memorization. They may be multipart, but should not be multiple choice. Conceptual exam questions are also solicited for the database, but are not the primary emphasis at the moment.


Back to Paul Green's Peer Instruction page.
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My email address is pgreen@cfa.hahvid.edu.
(Sorry, spelling Harvard that way prevents web crawlers from sending me junk mail! Just spell it correctly if you'd like to reach me.)
Phone is (617)495-7057 and FAX (617)495-7356, at the
Center for Astrophysics,
60 Garden St., Cambridge MA 02138