Report to:         TLTR Committee

Entitled:            Professional Development by Attending the 18^th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education

Date:                Dec. 27, 2004

Submitted by:    Dr. Mary E. Sisak

                        Dept. of Chemistry/Physics

This report details the outcomes that resulted from my attending the above-mentioned conference on chemical education in Ames, Iowa, July 18-22, 2004.  I was able to attend this conference because of the TLTR Grant that I received during the spring semester of 2004.  This is the second of these conferences that I have had the opportunity to attend.  During the summer of 2002 I was able to attend the 17^th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education that was held in Bellevue, WA.  My support for attending that conference came from my department, the university and from the CETP-PA grant.  All of the expenditures from this grant went to travel, meals and transportation.  A detailed travel form was completed and can be submitted with this report if required.

As the title of the conference indicates, it is held every other year.  These conferences have been held since 1970 and according to the American Chemical Society (ACS) have grown to be the largest conferences on chemical education in the world.  According the ACS, the purpose of these conferences are to provide the ?opportunity to gather together and share expertise and ideas, learn new chemistry, learn new techniques and instrumentation, meet new colleagues and continue old friendships among a large group of people who are all committed to excellence in chemical education.  The participants represent ?wide interests and talents of people who teach chemistry in high schools, colleges, and universities as well as people in industry, government, who have an interest in chemical education.? 

The most significant outcome of my attending the conference was my introduction to the Vernier testing probes.  During the summer of 2004, the chemistry department was allotted funds from the university to update the General Chemistry Laboratory.  The majority of these funds went to purchasing Vernier test probes.  While I was somewhat familiar with the technology, I was not involved in either the investigation into the equipment or the purchasing of the equipment.  My understanding was that this technology was only applicable to introductory type courses such as General Chemistry.  The types of probes that were purchased were ones primarily applicable to this use.  Since the department had hoped to begin utilizing these probes during the fall of 2004, I elected to attend the half- day workshop given by Vernier to familiarize myself with their use.

It was at this workshop that I became aware of the full capabilities of these probes and their applicability to upper level courses. Every other year, the chemistry department offers a course entitle ?Water Quality Assessment.?   This course is a 300 level lecture/lab course whose primary audience are the students in the environmental science program.  It is also available as an elective to students majoring in chemistry.  I have only taught this course once and that was four years ago.  I was very disappointed in the outcome and felt that it (the course) did not meet the objectives of the environmental program, specifically to allow student as much field experience as possible. 

On returning from the conference I redesigned the laboratory portion of this course.  The primary method of analysis will be the Vernier probes.  I was able to secure funds from the department to purchase 12 graphing calculators and additional Vernier probes that are applicable to the goals of the Water Quality Assessment course.  These probes and calculators will allow students to analysis water in the field for a variety of analytes of environmental interest.  The graphing calculators will allow the students to either make single determinations of the concentrations or to monitor the concentrations over a period of time.  Using the Vernier software, students will be able to download the information directly into a computer upon returning to the laboratory.  Dr. Kathy Shaffer and I will be team-teaching this course and we have designed a number of projects that we feel will be both useful and interesting to the students. 

There are three other outcomes that were achieved by attending this conference.  Unfortunately, due to time restraints (our department has been reduced from 9 full-time faculty to 5 full-time faculty requiring 3 of us to take overload and the hiring of 2 full time temporary faculty for the year) and the time I have spent on the above outcome, I have not been able to take action on these outcomes.  They are as follows. 

First, I became aware of several university sites such as the one maintained by Dr. John Gelder at the Oklahoma State University that offer on-line problem sets for students enrolled in General Chemistry.  These sites are open to any faculty who wishes to ?enroll? their students.  These sites provide the opportunity for students to test their knowledge while simultaneously providing immediate feedback.

Second, I became aware of a website called MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource Learning and On-line Technology).  The site was established and is maintained by chemical educators.  The purpose of the site is to review on-line chemistry items and establish guidelines and standards relative to what constitutes exemplary on-line items for teaching and learning.  Once a site is reviewed, it is input into the Merlot system with both a rating and feedback from other uses.  By searching through the Merlot site, chemical educators can quickly find high quality web sites on topics of interest.  In essence, the site provides peer review to web sites similar to journal peer review process.  I have suggested to Drs. Romanczyk (Psychology) and Carol Steglich (Biology) that when they have finished the website they are currently developing on exploring science as a career that they submit it for review by this organization.  In addition, I have volunteered to act as a MERLOT reviewer.

Finally, I was able to attend a session organized and run by Dr. Karen Timberlake.  She is the pioneer in chemistry texts for the health related fields in particular nursing.  The nursing department and I have had several discussions regarding either the development of a web-based chemistry course for the health sciences and/or a development of a pre-nursing curriculum for incoming students.  This session provided valuable information which may aid either of these projects.