Education

PhD, Gerhard-Mercator Universität Duisburg, Germany

Research Areas

Chemical education research focusing on improving undergraduate general chemistry instruction as well as primary and secondary science teacher education. This includes:

Science Teacher Education

The development of a new secondary science teacher education track at UWM in collaboration with the College of Community Engagement & Professions at UWM and partnering two-year institutions.

The development of a science method course that connects science content knowledge and pedagogy, and discusses student misconceptions and assessment.

Development of assessment methods to measure pedagogical content knowledge in pre-service teachers.

Improvement of K5-8 pre-service teacher science instruction through course and curriculum design targeting specific grade levels, expanding the number of courses available, and the development of pedagogy laboratory courses for integrating science content with methods for teaching this content.

Professional development opportunities for in-service teachers in the greater Milwaukee area.

Comprehensive Student Learning Assessment in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses

The development and implementation of anundergraduate student assessment/monitoring system in STEM disciplines that will longitudinally track individual students and cohorts of students, examining their academic progress and development of content knowledge. This system will be used to guide and provide interventions for individual students or work to increase the success of cohorts of students.

Early identification of student misconceptions in large undergraduate chemistry classes through the interactive use of a newly developed program that allows comprehensive user analytics. The platform “Classroom Salon”, which has been developed by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, allows students to discuss and comment on course content before topics are being discussed in class. This enables the instructor to include student questions and comments in the course instruction and more importantly reveals student misconceptions early.