Skip to content

Anatomy of disciplinary discernment as a scaffold for visualization-based astronomy instruction

Design · All designs
Evidence · no claims cited

Description

Eriksson and colleagues' hierarchical framework, in which disciplinary discernment is "noticing something, reflecting on it, and constructing meaning from a disciplinary perspective," arranged from recognizing or naming objects in an astronomical representation, to assigning disciplinary meaning, to combining disciplinary elements into holistic understanding, to analyzing and critiquing the representation. The article uses this framework to structure its planetarium lecture as a purposefully constructed scaffold: simplest tasks involve identifying and naming planetary moons, while more sophisticated tasks combine principles (independent orbits, gravitational capture, accretion, impact ejection) into holistic understanding of scenarios for moon formation.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • An instructor-guided tour through astronomical visualizations so learners can cross into increasingly advanced levels of discernment

Constraints

  • The framework is applied here only to undergraduate moon concepts in introductory astronomy; the article does not claim it was tested as a variable

Target Learners

  • undergraduate introductory astronomy students

Learning Goals

  • disciplinary discernment about planetary moons, including their identities, motions, and formation scenarios

Claims

Examples

-

Key Sources

  • Yu, K. C., Sahami, K., Denn, G., Sahami, V., & Sessions, L. C. (2016). Immersive Planetarium Visualizations for Teaching Solar System Moon Concepts to Undergraduates. Journal of Astronomy & Earth Sciences Education, 3(2). https://www.thecluteinstitute.com
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id anatomy-disciplinary-discernment-astronomy-scaffold
title Anatomy of disciplinary discernment as a scaffold for visualization-based astronomy instruction
description Eriksson and colleagues' hierarchical framework, in which disciplinary discernment is "noticing something, reflecting on it, and constructing meaning from a disciplinary perspective," arranged from recognizing or nami...
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-11-02
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — yu-2016

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.