Hack Day 2025#
Overview#
The AstroCodEx team is hosting a 2-day workshop at Yale to further develop the AstroCodEx and to create space for discussion around astronomy pedagogy and creative teaching strategies. The workshop is open to educators (including teaching fellows) who are interested in building, revising, or contributing to interactive, code-based assignments in astronomy.
The event will take place Thursday, August 21 to Friday, August 22, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM in KT 101.
What is a Hack Day?#
A hack day is a focused, collaborative working session centered around building and improving a shared resource. In our case, that means developing assignments for AstroCodEx, an open-source repository of interactive programming exercises written in Jupyter notebooks with MyST Markdown.
Participants will have time to create new assignments or workshop existing ones, receive peer feedback, and collaborate in small groups based on shared teaching interests. The hack day includes structured sessions, peer review, and informal teaching presentations designed to support collaboration and reflection.
Short Presentations: Teaching Ideas & Innovations#
Throughout the two days, participants will have the opportunity to give short (5–10 minute) presentations on teaching ideas or strategies they’ve found effective. These can include innovative teaching strategies, novel exercises you’ve developed, or reflections on common teaching challenges. Presentations can be informal, and all contributions are welcome. Our goal is to open space for sharing teaching best practices and lessons learned across our community.
If you’re interested in presenting, please reach out or let us know in the registration form.
Schedule#
Day 1
09:00 AM: Introduction & Coffee
09:30 AM: Hack Planning Session
10:00 AM: Hack Session I
12:00 PM: Lunch Break
01:00 PM: Overview of Jupyter + MyST tools
01:30 PM: Short Presentations I
02:00 PM: Hack Session II
04:45 PM: Closing Thoughts
05:00 PM: End of Day 1
Day 2
09:00 AM: Coffee & Settling In
09:15 AM: Hack Session III
11:00 AM: Short Presentations II
12:00 PM: Lunch Break
01:00 PM: Peer Review Period
02:00 PM: Hack Session IV
04:00 PM: Group Discussion & Reflections
05:00 PM: End of Day 2
Session Descriptions#
Hack Planning Session#
We will start the morning session of Day 1 by forming hack groups or pairs based on shared interests and goals. To help guide this process, we’ll use responses from the registration form and a poll to connect participants with similar ideas or areas of focus. We’ll also provide example topics, guiding questions, and a list of project ideas to help get started.
Overview of Jupyter and MyST Tools#
This session will be a brief tutorial introducing MyST Markdown and Jupyter Notebook tools used to format AstroCodEx exercises. This allows exercises to be both interactive and web-friendly. We’ll provide templates and examples to help participants develop their assignments in this format.
Peer Review Period#
Each exercise will receive feedback during this session to improve clarity, structure, and effectiveness. Participants will trade assignments, attempt one another’s exercises, and provide feedback based on guided prompts. We will provide a simple worksheet to support both giving and receiving feedback, focusing on aligning the exercise with learning objectives, assessing the clarity of instructions, and setting an appropriate difficulty level.
Group Discussion and Reflections#
We’ll close the event with a group conversation reflecting on the workshop and on programming education more broadly in astronomy and at Yale. Participants will have access to optional reflection prompts starting on Day 1 to guide this discussion. This will be an opportunity to share feedback on the event structure, content, and tools, as well as thoughts on teaching challenges and opportunities in our community.
Registration#
Please register by Thursday, August 14 using this registration form.
Questions?#
The AstroCodEx Team can be reached at astrocodex@googlegroups.com.