Distance education is an important option for higher education; however, the Astronomy field still lacks educational material and assessments of the quality of courses taught in this modality. In this paper, we report an experience of five consecutive semesters (from 2011/2 to 2013/2) in which an Astronomy course for undergraduate students of Physics at UFRGS was delivered via distance education. We describe the teaching material that was developed and implemented on the Moodle platform. Learning was assessed by online activities and face-to-face exams. Considering the overall results after five semesters, we found that: passing rates among students showed a small improvement compared to the results of the previous five semesters, when the course was offered only in the face-to-face classroom mode; demand for evening classes (delivered through distance education) increased slightly; and dropout rates did not change significantly. Interactivity among students in the virtual environment was below expectations. We conclude that the quality of distance teaching and learning is the same as in the face-to-face mode, and that, for some students, distance education can be more effective than traditional methods. Nevertheless, improvements are necessary in order to reach a larger number of students.
Keywords:
astronomy; distance learning; higher education; courseware
