Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy - Preliminary Version

Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy were developed to integrate the needs of busy, research-focused faculty who teach in challenging environments with existing, effective teaching strategies. Chapter topics include the Solar System, stellar magnitudes, techniques in astronomy, moon phases, stellar evolution, and more. For college professors, instructors and other professionals who are interested in a lively, engaging method of teaching introductory astronomy.

Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy, which was developed by the Conceptual Astronomy and Physics Education Research (CAPER) team, is a collection of classroom-tested activities designed for the large-lecture introductory astronomy class, although suitable for any astronomy class. These Lecture-Tutorials are short, structured activities designed for students to complete while working in pairs. Each activity targets one or more specific learning objectives based on research on student difficulties in astronomy. Most activities can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes.

The instructor's guide provides, for each activity, the recommended prerequisite knowledge, the learning goals for the activity, a pre-activity assessment question, an answer key, suggestions for implementation, and follow-up questions to be used for class discussion or homework.