Astronomer reaching for the stars

An astronomy professor in the College of Arts and Science has received a prestigious national award and grant that he plans to use to improve the science knowledge of future elementary teachers and other nonscience majors.

Harry Shipman, Annie Jump Cannon Professor of Astronomy, says he will use the grant to carry out a proposal he calls "STARS--Science Teaching and Astronomy Research Synthesized."

Shipman is one of six university and college faculty members nationwide selected in May for the award, which recognizes both his research and his teaching. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars is the highest award presented to professors who excel at both undergraduate teaching and scholarship.

Each award carries an individual grant of $300,000, to be used over four years, to enable recipients to improve how science, technology, engineering and mathematics research translates into undergraduate instruction.

In his proposal, Shipman wrote that "average Americans will need some scientific and technological sophistication in order to participate as citizens, workers and thinking human beings in the 21st century."

The goal of STARS, he says, is to "develop and publish an extensive set of hands-on student activities that will incorporate current science research into what students do in collaborative groups in the classroom." These activities will be directed to students who are not majoring in science, Shipman says, identifying an important group of them as prospective elementary teachers.

He says two pivotal experiences broadened his own views of teaching--serving as faculty director of UD's Center for Teaching Effectiveness and spending a 1994 sabbatical in the science education department of the University of Georgia. Both helped him realize the potential of problem-based learning and collaborative learning in the classroom, as opposed to a lecture-only format, he says. He has since been a leader in promoting teaching reform at the University and has earned both the excellence-in-teaching and Francis Alison faculty awards at UD.

Shipman says he plans to work with a group of high school teachers and undergraduates during summers, analyzing data gathered by a graduate student about problem-based learning activities. "When teaching, I keep detailed records of class-tested activities--what works and what doesn't--and of student evaluations," he says.

In addition to recognizing his innovative teaching, the NSF award honors Shipman for his research investigating white dwarf stars and, more recently, brown dwarf stars. His research resulted in the confirmation of a Nobel Prize-winning theory on the nature of white dwarf stars, which are like Earth's sun but in the final stages of their life cycles. He uses his and other current scientific research as a springboard for his classroom teaching.

-- Sue Moncure