List of Recorded Lecture Video Links and Information
QR Code to Shared Google Drive
Updated Lecture Materials for OpenStax Astronomy (2e)
Overview
I provide a major update to materials I had previously posted on OER Commons, providing lecture slides, recorded video, and lecture notes. All files are available through Google Drive and YouTube. The new materials are organized into six modules: 1) The History of Astronomy and Sky Motions, 2) The Moon, Earth, and Solar System, 3) The Astronomer’s Toolkit, 4) Properties of the Sun and Stars, 5) The Lives and Deaths of Stars, and 6) The Milky Way Galaxy and Beyond.
Introduction to the Materials
Context for Update: In July 2020, I made my full course of lecture slides and corresponding lecture videos available on OER Commons, which I will refer to as my first edition (1e) materials. Over the course of Winter 2024, I overhauled my material and made significant changes and updates to how I moved through my curriculum goals and built alignment with learning outcomes. The new set of materials connects to the published second edition of OpenStax Astronomy so I will refer to these materials as my second edition (2e) materials.
I have made available a set of materials I will describe in the following sections, all with a CC BY-SA 4 license:
- Lecture Slides
- Recorded Videos
- Lecture Notes
The materials I will describe here can all be found or linked to from this Google Drive folder. Thank you for your interest and if you have found either my 1e or 2e materials useful, I would love to hear about through my school email laurenwoolsey [at] grcc.edu.
The material is laid out into six modules instead of seven to provide more flexibility for different course structures across the country and beyond. I teach 14-week courses that can now start with an introduction week and a review week, with two weeks for each module; I also teach accelerated 7-week courses that can have a few days of introduction at the beginning and more time for review and final summaries at the end of the semester.
Titles of the Six Modules:
- The History of Astronomy and Sky Motions
- The Moon, Earth, and Solar System
- The Astronomer’s Toolkit
- Properties of the Sun and Stars
- The Lives and Deaths of Stars
- The Milky Way Galaxy and Beyond
Section titles and intended learning outcomes are laid out in the attached resource on this section (also available in the Resources folder of the shared Google drive).
Lecture Slides
My slides are a comprehensive overview of a one-semester non-majors introductory astronomy college course. The material is broken up into six modules in this edition (seven modules in 1e). Each module is designed to take two weeks each during a regular semester or one week each for accelerated course structures. All of the images in the slides are openly licensed as well, pulling heavily from OpenStax Astronomy but also the wider web of Creative Commons media.
The Shared Google Slides contain the six modules as separate presentations, which you could then copy to use in Google Slides or download as a different file format to work with Powerpoint, Open Office, etc.
The Shared PDF and PPTX files are alternative ways to download these materials. The PDFs are already put together in three formats:
- "Slides" which has one slide per page and could be used in lecture or for students to follow along on their own devices. All links are clickable in the PDF.
- "Condensed" which is a three by three landscape grid of slides most suitable for efficient printing for students who want to be able to easily reference the full set.
- "Notetaking" which is a portrait orientation with three slides in a column on the left and empty area to take notes on the right; students often use these to take notes during lecture whether on-campus or online.
A major update in these 2e materials compared to my previous set of slides is that all images have detailed and descriptive alt text. The alt text for all 526 images is provided in this Alt Text Spreadsheet along with module numbers and slide numbers.
If you have difficulty accessing the material, please contact me directly at laurenwoolsey [at] grcc.edu. If you use these slides, please credit me (Dr. Lauren Woolsey) and my home institution (Grand Rapids Community College). You are welcome to take the slides and pick and choose what to add into your existing lectures, but please remember to include the attribution appropriately.
The following sections describe the recorded lecture videos and lecture notes.
Recorded Videos
I have created a comprehensive set of lecture videos designed for a one-semester non-majors introductory astronomy college course. The material is broken up into seven modules, which are designed to take two weeks each during a regular semester or one week each for accelerated course structures. Images used in the lecture videos come from OpenStax Astronomy and the wider web of Creative Commons media.
The playlists for each Module can be found at my YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@DrWoolsey and links are below:
This link is a Google Drive spreadsheet, which lists the YouTube URLs for all 50 videos I assign for my course, which include a small number of supplemental videos available on YouTube. I will also attach this spreadsheet as an XLSX here. Each row lists:
- Module and Section Number, which correspond with slide sets in the previous section here on OER Commons
- OpenStax chapters/sections covered, so that you can connect useful videos into whatever sequence you use
- Length of video, ranging from about 10-30 minutes (none are over half an hour in length)
- Type of video, which indicates if the video uses the available slides directly or is supplemental in a few different ways.
If you have difficulty accessing the material, please contact me directly at laurenwoolsey [at] grcc.edu. If you use these slides, please credit me (Dr. Lauren Woolsey) and my home institution (Grand Rapids Community College). You are welcome to link to or embed these videos in your Learning Management System.
Lecture Notes
A new document for each module that I created when revising my 1e materials was a set of lecture notes that lays out the same key ideas in a different way than the slides and videos do.
The Shared Lecture Notes in the linked folder are available in DOCX and PDF formats. Each set of lecture notes has the same consistent layout:
- Each Module Section is at the top of a new page, and the same links to the OpenStax Astronomy 2e textbook and learning outcomes for the section are presented at the start.
- Then I indicate the Highlighted Glossary, the terms that I keep in bold throughout the slides and notes document that are the most essential for success in the course. Instructors with other curriculum goals may want to change or add to this list, especially if building from these slides for non-majors toward an introduction course for science majors.
- Finally, for each section, I write out a Lecture Commentary which is not attempting to be a transcript of the recorded lecture videos but rather the same information presented in a readable format with more small details that may be relevant to a student's interests or to enhance the point without making the lecture videos run longer than necessary.
Each Module Section notes are 2-4 pages long, and I provide these to students as an additional way to interact with the material, realizing that some students may read through these instead of watching the videos and will still receive all curriculum information necessary for success in the course.
Summary
I presented my new lecture content for my survey astronomy course for non-majors with three sets of materials openly licensed for wide use and remixing:
- Lecture Slides
- Recorded Videos
- Lecture Notes
My hybrid on-campus course uses these lecture materials for a flipped classroom model, assigning the videos as homework so we can have discussions, quizzes, and labs in person. My online asynchronous non-lab course uses them as a way to present only the curriculum goals I have for my students, since the textbook has far more information than is needed for that target audience. In both of these courses, I also have module projects aligned with my learning outcomes that I am happy to share in conversation with interested folks and after a few semesters of iteration for the new projects I may add as a separate item in OER Commons.
Thank you for your interest and I hope these materials help you!
Lauren Woolsey
Grand Rapids Community College