Events

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

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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 

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Transformative Teaching in Science

Speaker: Dr. Ginger Shultz, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Education and Development, Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan

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Engineering Survivors: Students Who Persisted Through Academic Failures

Speaker: Dr. Michael Loui, Professor Emeritus,, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois

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Am I an Engineer: Identity, Belonging, and Motivation in Engineering Education 

Speaker: Allison Godwin, Professor of Engineering Education, Cornell University

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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 

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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

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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

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Chipping away at characterizing students’ engagement with empirical data

Speaker: Alena Moon, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

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Supporting Historically Marginalized Students in College STEM Classes

Speaker: Minjung Ryu, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Chicago

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