Rob Olling's Teaching Page
From the fall semester
2010 on (6 times), I have taught ASTRO300, ``Stars and Stellar
Systems'' for non-science majors. This class is based on "The Cosmic
Perspective," by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider & Voit (7th edition),
"e-book" version. I use
"Mastering Astronomy" for homeworks, tutorials and visual quizzes.
The lectures include basic physics (Newtonian gravity, special &
general relativity, quantum, optics, matter & light), stellar
structure and evolution as well as galaxy morphology and formation and
cosmology. I typically also assign the students a project in the form
of writing a realistic ``Observing Proposal." For the proposal, the
students presented a Notice of Intent (NOI) about two weeks before the
proposal is due. Based on those NOIs, I (often) suggested to modify
the proposals to more closely follow customary practice. The proposals
are then evaluated both by me and by the students themselves (in a
peer-review session).
- Here is some (mixed) feedback from my students
(slightly edited):
- As a
nonastronomy major, I found ASTR300 to be a very good introduction to
the field. While he started with highschool level of physics, he
rapidly brought us up to speed. Instead of lowering his standards, he
instead taught us to we could understand his standards. Because of
this course, I definitely want to keep taking astronomy
courses. Dr. Olling's occasionally got longwinded, but he was very
approachable. At times he almost ran the course like a seminar. He
treated students with the utmost respect in office hours, and proved
to be very considerate of student concerns. If you asked a question,
he'd take quite a bit of time to make sure you understand what's going
on. And if you want to keep learning more, he'll give you the
tools/papers to keep on learning. In short, Dr. Olling was a very good
teacher.
- Dr. Olling was
one of the best professors I have had, and made an extremely cool
topic very easy to understand and very easy to engage in. Although
some of the homeworks dragged on forever, I felt that I understood the
material a lot better because of the amount of work I would have to
put into the homeworks. Dr. Olling was a fantastic professor.
- The homework on
mastering astronomy didn't always line up with the course material, so
that we had homework on things we were not taught or expected to know
for the course. I don't know if it's because it's for nonscience
majors, but this class was SO slow and boring. I stopped going after
the first week. Most of the material I learned in ASTR100. I found the
professor tedious and not interesting. He didn't seem that interested
in the material and wasn't good at explaining it. Fortunately, I never
had to go to class because the homework and slides were online, and I
skipped almost every lecture. It also wasn't fun or interesting, which
was disappointing to me. I'm doing an astronomy minor because I love
space and want to learn more. So this class was very little work for
a good grade.
- Professor
Olling is clearly way more brilliant than the level of this class and
that shows, however he makes class funny and interesting because he is
passionate about what he does.
- Prof. Olling
has great knowledge about his subject, Galaxies, and was quite
thorough in presenting his data. He used an education company's
prepared slides most of the time. I would have preferred that he use
less of these and more of his
own.
- I liked the
class, a tad difficult on the math side but bearable. The math is
unavoidable when teaching something as complicated as a universe so
all is good. Other than that, the material in the class is very
informative. I liked it. The online homework was a tad tedious.
I have also taught the
Collisions in Space," class (ASTR220) at UMd (three semesters). For me
this is also a very interesting course with a special focus on impacts
on the Earth and the impact that killed the dinosaurs. For this class
we read an interesting book by Powel
on how the impact theory came about. More details on this course are
available here.
One of my students,
J. Medina, told me about this
wonderful animated gif. It shows the relative sizes of Earth,
Moon, Planets and various noteworthy stars. I include it right here.
I have mentored four
students. 1 high school student: summer project; 1 graduate student:
2nd year project; 1 graduate student for masters thesis; 1
computer-science major research project (ASTR498) [this student used
to be in my ASTR300 class]; 1 graduated student (astronomy minor;
computer science major; recruited from my A300 class) on a project to
help him gain practical experience in programming, data reduction and
astrometry.
In 1997 and 1998, at the
University of Southampton, I taught part of ``Physics of the Solar
System'' (a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year course for science majors), and
made a selection of nice,
interesting and entertaining web sites. Try them!
Last Updated: 5 June 2014