Classes Taught at Vanderbilt Unviersity
I was an Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Vanderbilt Unviersity from 2001-2007. During that time, of course, I taught a number of classes. Below are listed some of the classes I taught, with links to the course web pages. I taught each of the courses listed at least twice; some were taught multiple times.
Astronomy 102: Stars and Galaxies. An introductory astronomy course for anybody, whose only prerequisite is Math 133 or the equivalent (algebra & trigonometry). Through Summer, 2005, this class included a lab which uses 20 8" SCT telescopes at an observaing facility on the top of the 25th St. Garage. However, as of Fall, 2005, the lab portion of the course has been broken out into Astronomy 103.
Whereas you're "supposed" to teach classes like this by developing lecture notes the first time you teach them, and then leaning on them thereafter, I was never satisfied, and was always trying to find better ways to teach it. As such, two or three times I re-invented it, trying to figure out themes for teaching the course. Probably this wasn't terribly wise since I was at a research focused institution, and spending too much time caring about my classes, but I wanted to figure out the best way to teach the course. The last time I taught it (Fall 2006), I decided to focus the entire class around the questions "How old is the Universe? How do we know?" This still allowed a lot of the "traditional" stuff to be addressed, but (for instance) the discussion of stellar evolution was done in the context of how our understanding of stellar evolution eventually gives us ages for globular clusters that set a lower limit on the age of the Unvierse around 12 billion years or so. It also meant that, in contrast to previous years, we didn't spend much time on Kepler's laws at all.
Web pages from previous semesters I've taught this. Note that there are lots of broken links, particularly in older semesters, and indeed before 2006 the layout itself is currently broken.
Astronomy 103: Introductory Astronomy Lab. Web pages from previous semesters I've taught this:
- Fall 2006
- Summer 2006
- Fall 2005
Astronomy 250: Undergraduate Astronomy Seminar. A 1-unit course for anybody, and required for majors in Physics. The format of this course is different each time, but usually involves student presentations on a set of related topics. Last Taught Spring 2004.
Astronomy 253: Galactic Astrophysics; an upper division undergraduate course which covers the structure and evolution of galaxies. Last taught Spring 2004.
Astronomy 260: General Relativity and Cosmology. An upper-divison undergraduate introduction for to one of the two main theories that revolutionized Physics in the 20th century (the other, of course, being Quantum Mechanics). We will discuss the mathematics of describing kinematics in curved spacetime, introduce Einstein's field equations, and apply these to various situations such as stars and black holes, gravitational waves, and cosmology. Last taught Spring 2007.
Astronomy 311: Nebular Astrophysics; a course for graduate students in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. Last taught Fall, 2005.