Dr. Lauren Woolsey

Tenured assistant professor and open education resource coordinator at GRCC. Earthling. PhD in astronomy and astrophysics. Pronouns: she/her.

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

Hey @AstroKatie, your eclipse tweet made it onto one of my student's reference sheets for their final exam 🌞

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

I was sending the channel link to a student from a partner institution whose schedule won't allow him to take the course this summer and noticed the count :)

https://t.co/EQUjVMcP6D

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

Wow, somewhere along the way my openly licensed lecture videos on YouTube have collectively surpassed 100,000 views!

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

Excited to soon have a headshot up for the GRPL Library Board of Commissioners! It's been a nice start to the term so far, looking forward to a second meeting in a few weeks. Credit for these lovely photos goes to Hailey Jansson :)

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

@msittig I just emailed you! I'm glad you're finding the videos helpful :)

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

I'm halfway through grading the first astronomy project in all of my classes and loving the creativity of my students! I've gotten a puppet show, a poster collage, a handout which included several drawings including the one here (Credit: Nicole McKean, shared with permission)

1/

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

I've iterated on the rubric more than I've iterated on the project basics, and I'm really happy with where it's all at right now, and I think students enjoy it!
If you teach astronomy and would like the project information page, please let me know. I love sharing ideas!

3/3

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

I *love* this project every semester, it's a great way to start the class when we haven't quite covered much ground yet. Students are assigned a constellation and are asked to provide answers to a series of science questions in whatever format they would like to use.

2/

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

It was great working with Phil de Haan on this story! https://t.co/RN54Q5h1Fy

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

Force of gravity experienced by each planet from the Sun, relative to Earth and Sun.

Mercury 0.37
Venus 1.56
Earth 1.00
Mars 0.046
Jupiter 11.7
Saturn 1.05
Uranus 0.040
Neptune 0.019

J >> V > S > E > Me > Ma > U > N

6/6

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

I enjoy when students ask me questions in class. I love when students ask me questions I don't have an immediate answer to. And I absolutely adore when a question sends me on a brief rabbit hole of investigation or calculation to address!

1/

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

I've just gone back and normalized everything relative to the Earth, because at least that's less arbitrary. I also fixed some rounding errors from when I used the photo I took of the chalkboard to write up the first draft of this thread!

5/

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

@kaylactucker @ghtribune Congratulations Kayla! I hope you are enjoying it :)

[margo steines @margosteines]

@starbetter absolutely, the whole "we need to prepare them for the real world" is such a load of shit, an excuse to wield small power over people who are genuinely trying to figure out their way in the world

[margo steines @margosteines]

this semester i tried a radical thing where i made every single deadline flexible for my college writing students. every single one! no "i almost died" note required. the policy is that if they aren't going to meet the deadline, they just propose an alternate one. i bet this...

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

@GameBiologist I appreciate you sharing this. My online students tell me that I am more engaged than any other online course they've taken, so I think there is definitely some of that out there still.

Faculty are humans and varied, so any one size fits all statement is problematic (like OT)

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

It's hard to distill a thought down into 280 characters for twitter. Adam Grant is normally pretty good at this, but this tweet misses a lot of context and systemic inequity and it really rubs me the wrong way.

I'll try to explain in a short thread.

1/

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

I’m seeing a growing number of students complain: “My grade doesn’t reflect the effort I put into the course.”

Public service announcement: You don’t get an A for effort. You earn it for excellence.

Success is measured by the level of mastery you show, not how hard you work.

[Dr. Lauren Woolsey @Prof_Woolsey]

@LostR2 Thank you for sharing your story here. I wish you had received more support when you needed it. Every student has a different story to tell, and it's my goal as an instructor to meet each where they are and have transparency in what I'm asking for and how to get through the class