Shhh… don’t tell anyone. I’m not an inorganic chemist! Don’t get me wrong, inorganic chemistry is lovely. I remember as an undergraduate when I first took my first inorganic class with group theory; spinning molecules in my mind, applying linear algebra in context, connecting shapes to spectra… it was beautiful.  I had always planned to go to graduate school in chemistry, and for a while I thought about applying to an inorganic graduate program because it was the science that was most exciting to me.  However, I realized that as much as I enjoyed learning chemistry, my true desire was teaching chemistry, which I had discovered through years of tutoring and science outreach. I didn’t want to be in the lab; I wanted to be in the classroom, so I entered the discipline of chemistry education.  Today, I’m active in the LAA (Learning Assistant Alliance) and POGIL (Process Orientated Guided Inquiry Learning) communities.   I try to incorporated student voice and expertise in my classroom and extensively utilize active learning strategies.

So, why did I want to become a VIPEr fellow?  Well, as I said before, I’m not an inorganic chemist.  If you came to my general chemistry classes, the flow of concepts from one topic to another is clear to a fellow chemist.  The foundation of ideas needed for future coursework in organic, physical, and inorganic chemistry are laid as students engage in small group work.  At the summer Fellows workshop as we watched our videos of teaching, my videos were scored as I expected; interactive discussion and students engaged in guided inquiry learning.  But… I worried that the concepts they were learning were siloed and distinct, rather than interconnected and related to real world applications.  There is less nuance and interconnectivity in my inorganic than my general chemistry course.  I want to be a better inorganic chemist, so I can be a better inorganic chemistry teacher.

At the VIPEr Fellows workshop we examined the use of literature discussion Learning Objects in our classrooms.  My focus for changing my course this year was to bring literature discussions into the course to help students connect ideas between topics and see their application in research.  Before exam 1, I adapted a Learning Objective by Carroll et al (2017) on stable monomeric SiO₂ to help my students see applications of bonding models and to be exposed to X-ray crystallography data.  Before exam 2, we explored a Learning Object adapted from Geselbracht (2008) on fivefold bonding in Cr(I) dimers for students to apply symmetry and molecular orbitals to molecular structures.  Literature discussions helped me better engage in inorganic research.  Students found the papers challenging, and we spent time learning how to read the chemistry literature as well as integrating concepts.  “Learning to read the literature” included conventions such as how molecules are identified by number in figures and discussion, practice connecting data in a table to labels in a molecule,  and strategies on pulling relevant data from extraneous data in text.  Explicitly teaching these skills has a big impact on students moving from being  intimidated by the literature to feeling that they can navigate it.   Through discussion the texts went from impenetrable to relevant as we saw the concepts we had learned in class used by inorganic chemists in the lab to better understand the world and produce new materials.  Next year, I hope to include an additional literature discussion before exam 3 to explore acids and bases and reactivity. 

Additionally, this year I revised some of my group activities to align more closely with POGIL model exploration.  For instance,  I modified an atomic orbital activity to explore models from the Orbitron simulator.  I’m planning on uploading some of my small group activities to VIPEr so that I’m contributing to the community rather than only taking from it.  I always worry that my activities are not “good enough” to share, but the VIPEr community has been very supportive. I’m looking forward to the summer Fellow meeting to continue to grow as an inorganic chemist and inorganic chemistry teacher.