Mid Semester

This is part 4 in my continuing series of blogs about the life of an online instructor.

We are now past mid-semester. The students have become conditioned. They have learned how to do research and provide citations in their work. They know they have to work hard in this class. They are expert at getting their weekly team projects coordinated and delivered on time in an efficient manner. They often have deep ties to their teammates and a real sense of belonging.

The good students in this class are really good!

“It is hard to get harder but easy to get easier.” So at this point it’s time to have some fun. I give my students something a little more creative. This week, let’s write a little script about a galaxy who is appearing on Opra or some other talk show. Here is the assignment:

My Life as a Galaxy

You have all been working very hard and you deserve to have some fun this week. You do not have to follow the requirements for a Team Paper this week. All you need to do is to make this project informative, entertaining and a good learning experience. You are going to write a script about a particular type of galaxy.

Group assignments:
Team A - Spiral,
Team B - Barred Spiral,
Team C - Giant Elliptical,
Team D – Irregular
Team E – Lenticular
Team F – Colliding Galaxies

Each team will assume the role of this kind of galaxy for this week. Pretend you are on the Oprah Winfrey Show or the Tonight Show or any other similar program and tell us your tragic or heroic story. Tell the rest of us about your life. What do you look like and how were you born? Do you have any serious personal problems? Just what's the deal with you anyway? Feel free to be a bit dramatic and creative but keep it clean and tasteful. Please keep your mini-drama to two pages max and share it with the rest of the class. You must supply at least 4 pictures and a list of at least three references but don't worry about direct quotes. The main idea is to have fun!

Each student should locate and post at least one picture and unique hotlink. Then, using information from that site, write a few lines of dialog to be integrated into the team's script. This must be done by Friday at midnight. Have fun with this but make sure it is based on real science.

The team's script is to be posted no earlier than Saturday and no later than Sunday at midnight.

Some students are so well-conditioned that they have a hard time letting go of the “Team Paper” requirements. But after they get into it they have a grand time. They seem to love the freedom to be creative and the teams come up with some amazingly entertaining scripts.

Here is an excerpt:

KING: Good evening, Barred Spiral Galaxy.

BSG: Good evening! Please, just call me Barry.

KING: Ok, Barry. So, first of all, tell me what it is like being a "barred spiral galaxy." What are they exactly?

BARRY: That's a good question. We are a pretty common type of galaxy. As you can obviously tell, we have long arms winding towards our big bulges--which, I can assure you, are not fat. Our bulges are not circles either, as some people mistake them for.

KING: Alright, so your bulge is not entirely fat?

BARRY: No, it is not. Actually, it is made up of a tightly packed group of stars. Also, in the center of my bulge, I have a black hole; so don't get too close!

This is a lot of fun for my students and quite rewarding to me!