About Astronomy in Education - and courses

I know a few of the members here that have obtained some certification, or in the process of, in astronomy or an allied subject. What course and where would be a good place to start? I've always thought about it, perhaps with a view to local authority night class education (in a teachin caacity) and so forth, like what Ronan in Mayo mentioned here already.

I am more in the frame of mind of distance learning/home study. I already had a look on the Open University website, but nearly €400 for a poxy small course with a need for expanding the certification to something else after is a bit much in my opinion - unless someone has done it already?

Any thoughts?

Seanie.

Liverpool John Moore's Uni are doing a module based education programme. I'm seriously interested in it.

The fee per module is cheaper than you describe for the OU...

Here's a link:

www.ljmu.ac.uk/StudyLJMU/Courses/62265.htm

Cheers

Dave

I can tell you what I've been doing.

I went to UCD to study Mathematical Physics (back then there was one unit availble in 4th year related to astronomy, Prof. Feegans astrophysics course, the department has grown now thankfully...), but got a bit distracted and left with a Computer Science degree (and back then there was money in computers you know...), though I've 3 years of physics behind me.

There was little point in me doing night courses in astronomy, since I knew the physics, and I had learnt a lot of astronomy myself down the years.

So what I ended up doing was looking for an MSc. program. The OU was expensive and didnt offer a purely astronomy MSc. The colleges around here required that I be on campus and do any postgrad studies full time.

There are several colleges that offer distance MSc.'s. Though the colleges that offer them seem to change from year to year. The place I eventually settled on was Swinburne University of Technology astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/ . Im currently a little over half way through the program.

The requirement for most MSc programs is that you have a relavent primary degree, though most online astronomy colleges will take on amateurs without a primary degree.

Distance learning is different depending on where you do it. With Swinburne each unit you do an essay (20%) a project (30%) 2 online openbook exams (20%) the rest goes for online participation in the newsgroups. Access to the main online journals is provided, and the course is sent out on a CD of powerpoint slides.

I think it boils down to working out how much time and money you want to spend and at what level you want to get to. For the price of a single unit you can let a lot of astronomy books from amazon remember!

Hope this helps,
Cheers,
~Al

Seanie,
I did an Introduction to Astronomy course with the University of Central Lancashire. They offer several astronomy courses. I found that I learnt alot from the course. Having said that, it wasn't perfect either.
As Al said, you've to weigh up the cost vs. what you want from the course. One of the benefits of the course is that it fouses the mind to achieve a goal- in this case understanding astronomy a bit better.

Thanks guys.

My goal is that I would love to be abe to teach the subject. When I was younger, thats what I wanted to be - a teacher. My science degree in Maynooth was swayed when my other lifetime 'wannado' hobby, DJing, got its opportunity, and I didn't look back on the science degree since (no regrets either!).

While I have no intention of going back to Uni, I do relish the thought of teaching a subject I like and am also good at. Hence Astronomy. With interest growing all the time, I thought why not. Either under the auspice of TAS, or on my own as a tutor, I would like to do it, and be paid to do it. For that to happen, I need some sort of (basic?) qualification.

So thats why I am now thinking about teaching Astronomy as a subject. If David Moore and others can do it (even without teaching diploma's or specified astronomy qualifications), then why can't I?!?!

Seanie.

Either under the auspice of TAS, or on my own as a tutor, I would like to do it, and be paid to do it. For that to happen, I need some sort of (basic?) qualification.

I don't know... Once you are up front and honest with your prospective students that what you know has been learnt the hard way from cold nights and not from college I cant see the problem. Sure some people wont sign up because you dont have a degree in it, but hey, a lot will. Your work as editor of Realta for example shows prospective student that your not a fraud at least!

Perhaps taking a teaching course might be a better option. The Irish Science Teachers Association might be able to give you some pointers.

Cheers,
~Al