Mixed E-Learning Methods for Study the Modern Astronomy

Abstract

The paper presents some informal e-learning methods, adapted for teaching and learning the Observational and the Computational Astronomy and tested recently on groups of students from University of Craiova. The finality of the experiment was to insert the students directly into some hot topics of astronomical research, starting only with the basically knowledge derived from astronomy popularisation sites and studying in small interactive autonomous groups. The approach included three steps: a formalization of some recent problems in Astronomy, with a continuous feed-back inside the testes group of students, an extended individual documentary research, based on the virtual lab principle, and a final analysis of the results of this investigation, when the students were asked to propose and sustain a planning of lessons in astronomy for teaching the studied concepts and facts to secondary level scholars.