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INTRODUCTION
Research experience is a vital aspect of undergraduate education in the physical sciences, as well as an increasingly critical qualification for graduate admissions (Crowe and Brakke 20083; Russell, Hancock, and McCullough 20079; DeHaan 20055; Wilkerson 200713). However, many developmental barriers stand in the way of undergraduate students’ successful participation in research, even for those with strong conceptual and technical backgrounds from coursework. Comprehension of the specialized jargon and idioms of the field, understanding of research practices and technical methods, and familiarity with the technical literature are useful knowledge that students new to research lack. The challenge of obtaining this background can be particularly intimidating to undergraduates working with more senior researchers who acquired a more complete command of these faculties through a decade or more of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral study.
Immersion in scientific discourse through activities such as seminar attendance and interaction with senior researchers has been a leading pathway for undergraduates to attain literacy in research, similar to the widely applied philosophy for education in foreign language (Johnson and Swain 19976). However, the time available for such direct interaction is necessarily limited, and can vary substantially depending on the size and structure of the host department at the student’s institution. To supplement these important real-world interactions, virtual tools can be used to increase student immersion (Price 20078; Chang et al. 20122).
In this commentary, we suggest the use of the web resource Astrobites as a learning tool for undergraduate astronomy courses. We describe the content and goals of the Astrobites website and its authorship, discuss previous uses of Astrobites in formal academic settings, and suggest novel applications of its content to prepare undergraduates for careers in research.
DESCRIBING ASTROBITES
The Astrobites website (http://astrobites.com), founded in December 2010, is an online “reader’s digest” for the astrophysics preprint server astro-ph (Note-1 ). As illustrated in Figure 1, the website publishes succinct (approximately four–seven paragraphs) summaries of the methods, results, conclusions, and context of new research articles in astrophysics posted to astro-ph. The summaries are designed for undergraduates who have taken coursework in the physical sciences. Knowledge of basic physical concepts (e.g., energy conservation or blackbody radiation) is assumed, but relevant terminology and research methods are defined and links are provided to detailed references. Astrobites articles incorporate figures from the original sources, guiding readers through the visual presentation of key results from the article. About 400 of these summaries have been posted to date, with a current publication rate of one per day. Astrobites also publishes pieces with career advice for young researchers, notices of professional opportunities available to undergraduate students (such as Research Experiences for Undergraduates, REU, programs), and other supplementary content at a rate of twice per week.
Fig 1.
Screenshot of the Astrobites website, featuring the summary of Schneider et al. (2012)11. Accessed April 30, 2012
Astrobites was created and is developed and maintained by graduate students in astrophysical sciences from the United States and Europe (including the authors of this commentary). A regular “rotation” of about 30 authors each write 1 Astrobites post per month, and an additional set of about 10 graduate students provide supplemental contributions (Note-2 ). The motivation for drawing on graduate students to prepare content for Astrobites is two-fold: (1) researchers at this stage of their career are sufficiently expert in the content of the research articles to prepare summaries but are also aware of the level of familiarity to expect from the undergraduate target audience and (2) the graduate students benefit from the pedagogical exercise of summarizing research articles into an accessible format.
Astrobites currently receives about 300 regular readers per day, as measured by returning visitors tracked by Google Analytics. In addition, an informal September 2011 reader survey (for which there were 125 respondents) indicated that 2/3 of our readers do not visit our website, but instead subscribe to our RSS feed. The survey also showed that 20% of the respondents were undergraduate students. The remainder of the readership is approximately evenly divided between graduate students in astronomy, researchers who have already earned the Ph.D., and nonprofessional astronomy “enthusiasts.” We, therefore, estimate that Astrobites’ daily readership already includes >150 students in our target demographic of undergraduates in a physical science field. In the same reader survey, >80% of undergraduate respondents listed their career goal as “researcher” in astrophysics or a related field.
ASTROBITES IN THE CLASSROOM
Past Uses of Astrobites
To assess the usage of Astrobites in undergraduate classrooms to date, we performed a survey targeted at both students and educators in our readership that have used Astrobites in the classroom (Note-3 ). We received responses from four students and six educators indicating that they had used Astrobites in a class. From among these responses, we present two anecdotes regarding the use of Astrobites in undergraduate classrooms:
- 1.
Astronomy 20, “Basic Astronomy and the Galaxy”California Institute of Technology, Fall 2012, Professor John JohnsonIn this inquiry-based introductory astronomy course, students were instructed to maintain their own blogs (
Note-4 ). Students used the blogs to record problem-solving techniques learned in the class, as well as to produce original content including interviews with astronomers and summaries of modern research topics. Astrobites was presented to the students as a model for a blog of this type. - 2.
Astronomy 61, “Current Problems in Astronomy and Astrophysics”Swarthmore College, Spring 2012, Professor Eric JensenIn this journal-club-style discussion course for advanced undergraduates, students were responsible for selecting and summarizing research articles for the week’s seminar on a rotating basis. Astrobites was offered to students as a resource for selecting interesting articles and as a source for background information and context.
These anecdotes illustrate a subset of the possibilities for incorporating Astrobites into formal educational settings to increase student engagement outside the classroom.
Suggested Uses of Astrobites
To supplement the existing examples of Astrobites usage in the classroom described in Section 3.1, here we present suggestions for novel applications of Astrobites in undergraduate curricula.
- 1.
Reading assignments. Students are asked to read Astrobites throughout the semester, to increase immersion in astronomy outside the classroom and to reinforce concepts learned in lectures. Astrobites would therefore be used in a manner similar to web-based multimedia learning modules as prelecture assignments to supplement textbook materials (Stelzer et al. 200912; Sadaghiani 201210). Student participation could be evaluated during in-class discussions of current research or by asking students to formulate follow-up questions based on the reading. These questions could be submitted for class discussion or could be posted directly on the Astrobites website (see point 4).
- 2.
Written summaries. Students are asked to write their own summaries of research articles in astronomy, modeled on the format of Astrobites. These research summaries could be assigned periodically throughout the semester or as a single term project where the students are asked to review several topical articles. The Astrobites website provides a convenient archive of brief, informative, and accessible summaries of recent research in astrophysics and can therefore serve as a resource to help students identify specific studies or topics that have methodology and results that interest them. This obviates the need for students to become sufficiently expert in the full range of astrophysics research to select a recent article from a general bibliography of publications. If student writing is posted online, in a blog format, it may facilitate peer discussion and encourage students to make high-order connections between scientific topics discussed in the classroom and research methods (Daniels 20104).
- 3.
In-class presentations. Students are asked to describe a research article in astrophysics to their peers via an in-class presentation. As in point 2, the Astrobites website provides an archive of summaries, which students can use to select interesting articles or topics. Moreover, if students plan to present on a article that was already discussed on Astrobites, their classmates can read the Astrobites summary to rapidly familiarize themselves with the subject matter so that they may come prepared to start a discussion. In this way, students can engage in a collaborative argumentation learning environment where they can debate the merits of the scientific ideas presented in the articles, as well as the assumptions that the ideas rely on (Bell and Linn 20001).
- 4.
Discussion forum. Students (of any level) are asked to use the commenting feature of the Astrobites website to hold a discussion forum on a given research topic. By holding this discussion on the website rather than in the classroom, students have the opportunity to formulate their responses after doing background research into the topics as necessary and to cite relevant materials. Furthermore, because Astrobites authors and researchers from throughout the world (including, often, the authors of the article in discussion) read Astrobites, the discussion may broaden to include a wide range of perspectives and expertise (
Note-5 ).
CONCLUSIONS
In this commentary, we have presented Astrobites as a web resource that can be integrated into formal classroom education to improve undergraduate preparation for careers in research. We have described previous applications of Astrobites to the undergraduate curriculum and suggested novel uses for the website in future curricula.
In the sense that Astrobites is written by and for students in astronomy, and because many of the strategies we have suggested involve classroom discussions and peer-teaching, the usage of Astrobites in the classroom is a form of peer-assisted learning (see, e.g., Parkinson 20097). If the adoption of Astrobites as a mechanism for this type of instruction becomes more widespread, it could facilitate the use of statistically validated studies on the educational impact of Astrobites or other web-based pedagogy tools in the classroom.
Acknowledgments
We thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments. We are grateful to John Johnson, Eric Jensen, and all the other respondents to our survey for sharing their teaching experiences and to Douglas Duncan, Thomas Hockey, and Phil Sadler for their helpful discussions and support. Web hosting for Astrobites is provided by James Guillochon at the University of California at Santa Cruz. N.E.S. and E.N. are supported by the National Science Foundation through Graduate Research Fellowships, and S.K. is supported by NSF Grant AST-0907872.
Notes
astro-ph is the Astrophysics section of the arXiv, http://arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph.
The full Astrobites authorship is listed at http://astrobites.com/meet-the-authors/. All Astrobites authors contribute on an unpaid basis, and the website is presented without advertising and entirely as a not-for-profit enterprise.
The Astrobites educator survey questionnaire is available at http://astrobites.com/2012/03/05/aersurvey/.
The student blogs from the Astronomy 20 course can be accessed at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/∼jrv/Ay20/Ay20_Class_Website/Blogs.html.
Examples of Astrobites articles with reader discussions can be found at the following links: http://astrobites.com/2011/07/13/cold-flows-and-the-first-quasars/ and http://astrobites.com/2011/04/24/inelastic-dark-matter-ruled-out/.
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