We are in the midst of our 3rd NSF sponsored workshop on teaching inorganic chemistry, using the ionicviper website, and developing community. Seven members of the leadership council (Anne Bentley, Adam Johnson, Chip Nataro, Jeff Raker, Joanne Stewart, Lori Watson, and Nancy Williams) have been working hard for 8-9 months to put the workshop together. Yesterday we were joined by 22 participants from 3 of the 4 US time zones for a wonderful buffet dinner at Ivar's Salmon house and an introduction to "Understanding by Design" by Joanne Stewart. Today, the workshop consisted of presentations by the workshop leaders on "advanced use of the ionicviper website," (Lori Watson) introduction to assessment (Jeff Raker), two back to grad school sessions on "catalysis" (Nancy Williams) and "electrochemistry," (Chip Nataro) and more material on "designing assessments to gauge student understanding" (Adam Johnson).

Each participant is busily working on their individual learning objects for teaching inorganic chemistry to undergraduates. Starting tomorrow, our expert speakers will give presentations of their recent published research. We have an exciting slate of presenters: Karen Goldberg (University of Washington), Shannon Boettcher (University of Oregon), Cliff Kubiak (UC San Diego) and Jillian Dempsey (UNC Chapel Hill). The participants have been divided into 4 groups, one for each of the four speakers. Each team is responsible for creating a learning object based on the material presented at the workshop this week.

Stay tuned for more updates as the week continues... unless we are so busy approving the new LOs that we run out of time!