Spring 2025
Chemistry for Whom and for What Purpose?
Speaker: Dr. Ryan Stowe, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Fall 2024
"It Was All A Dream" - Conceptualizing a STEM Space as a Site for Black Joy, Creativity, and Identity Development
Speaker: Dr. Christopher Wright, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Drexel University
Transformative Teaching in Science
Speaker: Dr. Ginger Shultz, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Education and Development, Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan
Engineering Survivors: Students Who Persisted Through Academic Failures
Speaker: Dr. Michael Loui, Professor Emeritus,, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois
Am I an Engineer: Identity, Belonging, and Motivation in Engineering Education
Speaker: Allison Godwin, Professor of Engineering Education, Cornell University
Spring 2024
Thriving in the College of Chemistry: Assessing and Improving Academic Instruction and Climate
Speaker: Dr. Anne Baranger, Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
Social Network Analysis for Studies of Socio-Academic Relationships in Education: Critical Methodological Issues and Future Directions for the Field
Speaker: Trevion Henderson, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and STEM Education, Tufts University
Fall 2023
Valuing Multiplicity in Chemistry Learning
Speaker: Ira Caspari–Gnann, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Tufts University
In university chemistry classrooms, we often center and ascribe more value to certain ways of thinking, speaking, and doing, while others are ascribed less value and are pushed to the margins. Multiplicity instead allows for multiple ways to be valued equally, co-exist and be true in the same time and space. In this talk, I will draw on insight from several ongoing research projects to illustrate the value of multiplicity in different aspects of chemistry education research and practice. (1) How facilitators can center a multiplicity of student perspectives during learning encounters will be demonstrated through a dialogic-to-authoritative spectrum of learning assistant (LA) facilitation practices and the impact of dialogic and authoritative moves on student learning. (2) Examples of how different class designs influence these LA facilitation practices will be used to demonstrate how employing a multiplicity of frameworks to understand learning systems allows us to go beyond the descriptive level of studying educational innovations towards an explanatory account of complex systems. (3) Through comparing two different implementations of an organic chemistry mechanism problem, I will showcase how multiplicity of students’ thoughts can be encouraged or shut down and how the synergy of multiple students’ thoughts can lead to deeper sense making than elaboration on the correct answer. Implications for the use of frameworks in chemistry education research and for the implementation of problem designs and facilitation practices in university chemistry classrooms will be discussed.
Addressing Equity Asymmetries in General Chemistry Outcomes Through an Asset Based Supplemental Course
Speaker: Hannah Sevian, Professor of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts, Boston
An Analysis of Latino/a/x Engineering Students’ Experiences of Radicalization through Platicás
Speaker: Alex Mejia, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio
IRLI Summer Scholars Poster Session
Undergraduate Researchers and Faculty Members present on research conducted during the summer.
Spring 2023
Examining disconnects between mathematics learning and science usage, with calculus as an example
Speaker: Steven Jones, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, Brigham Young University
Chipping away at characterizing students’ engagement with empirical data
Speaker: Alena Moon, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Supporting Historically Marginalized Students in College STEM Classes
Speaker: Minjung Ryu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Chicago