Compared to other professors in my department, I definitely rely more so on my own observational experiences when answering naked-eye astronomy questions, and the mental models I can run from an earth-based reference frame based on those experiences.

Questions like, you see moon in this part of the sky at this time, what phase is it in? And where will you need to look to find the moon 24 hours later/ how will it have changed in appearance? I’m curious how many of us answer these more so with experience or models.

I’m not saying those are binary options... there is a continuum, it’s just for me, the more abstract models I mostly learned through observational inquiry. That is, they can help explain things I am deeply familiar with. I don’t get to the familiar by running the models.

I’ve been thinking about this because we often think of direct instruction vs inquiry as two different methods to arrive at “an understanding” — maybe one is more or less efficient, or more or less robust, or more or less efficacious.

But my sense is that my understanding is (in some sense) categorically different than (some of) my colleagues. And although it’s on a continuum, it’s distant enough to be across a phase change. It’s not better or worse; but it’s literally we have constructed different things

Rather than asking “which method of teaching is better?”, it is worth asking questions like “what type of understanding are we trying to achieve in this context / topic? Why? For what purpose? “ How do we want students to know about and relate to the moon (or other topics)?

How we answer this type of question should inform our instructional approaches for a given topic, given context; and it will vary— vary by the topic, the individual, the classroom, the community in which that learning is embedded.

To the extent to which this makes sense (to me), it also pushes up against the notion of “standards”, which function to render understanding of a topic back to a “single thing”, and thereby forcing us back to questions about the efficiency / efficacy of learning.

This thread has meandered somewhat, but it’s where my thoughts were going through the night, so good morning all.