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Summer "Visit" - 2020 - OIRMA

Our regular summer visit to Caltech was hijacked by COVID-19. So we did an online work week instead -- 4 days when all the participants on the team come together to work intensively on the data. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

OIRMA worked July 5-9, 2020. The 5 core team educators attended, plus 6 students.


Quotes

  • Real astronomy is DATA. It is having to think outside the box to turn the invisible visible by using multiple sets of information from potentially multiple sources. I expected this would be part of the research project but was surprised by the ability to successfully change methods for data collection during the project.
  • The best thing about the week was being able to contribute to a real project where we don’t know the answer. [...] It was refreshing to have the chance to explore and analyze.
  • [...]the program creates an in-practice glimpse of what it can be like to work with students in a radically different way from how we do in the standard classroom. Not knowing the answer is a powerful interpersonal equalizer. And that leveling is not an ornamental feature or political nicety, it’s a critical precursor to collaboration in a group of educators and students.
  • Working together was super powerful because with many eyes on the same problem it takes less time to find new avenues and catch missteps.
  • Working together is crucial to the project so when one person fell behind or was confused, there were multiple people to help them get on track. I feel that we are even more comfortable working collaboratively after the 4 days and we were able to feed off of each other’s ideas and strengths regularly.

Summer "Visit" - 2020 - OIRMA