by Seth Anthony

I'm going to start out with an odd statement for a blog aimed towards a community of chemistry education researchers: I've never loved research. Liked it, sure. But it’s never gotten me up in the morning excited to go to work.

Teaching is what gets me up in the morning, and even before I started graduate school in CER, I wanted to pursue a position centered around teaching, not research. But during my first year-and-a-half as a faculty member at a teaching-oriented, primarily undergraduate institution, I’ve found that my training in CER impacts much more of my job than I expected.

There’s the obvious, of course. A CER background helps us understand the process of learning – for instance, how constructivism underlies inquiry-based instruction and therefore how to implement research-based practices most effectively.

Perhaps the most substantial impact of my CER background is that it’s led me to try to promote a culture of reflective practice. At a teaching-centered institution, I found myself surrounded by other faculty who all share the professional goal of teaching well, but most of whom never received training in pedagogy or educational theories. Oddly, despite the fact that we’re in the classroom or teaching laboratory for a large fraction of our days, I noticed early on that disappointingly few conversations actually centered on what happens in the classroom.

Some of that’s because we’re all so busy, and some of it’s because we’re all sensitive about admitting that our teaching might not be quite what we want it to be. As CER researchers, though, we come from a culture in our community and research groups where we may be a little more comfortable (and even eager) to share both our successes and failures in the classroom. I think we can bring some of that to our campuses at large. This happens in casual conversations in the hallway, of course, but I’ve organized like-minded groups of junior faculty to go out for drinks with the explicit purpose of talking about teaching. It’s also shown up in one facet of my job that I didn’t even know existed before I began interviewing for faculty jobs: institutional assessment.

As part of institutional assessment, a university or a degree program formally defines learning objectives for students and evaluates students’ performance against those objectives – and this is an increasingly important part of the accreditation process. Many faculty view this as an obnoxious paper-pushing hoop to jump through, but it can serve a useful purpose – it’s a formal structure that provides us an opportunity for us to model being data-driven about our classroom practices. With backgrounds in education research – designing interview protocols, coding student responses, running statistical analyses – we know how to capture meaningful information about student performance, we know that performance algorithmic problems doesn’t always reflect conceptual understanding, and we can infuse that sort of knowledge into the process of assessment, modeling a little bit of what we do in CER for our colleagues.

Of course, we’re all also eager to have an impact inside the classroom – and I found that the best strategies here were simultaneously to start big and to start small.

Especially in my first year, I tried to be ambitious in what I did in my classroom, even if it was “outside the box.” During your first year in a faculty position, your teaching load is often lighter – and you’re usually not overloaded with committee assignments and other projects. Rather than being hesitant to “rock the boat” as junior faculty, I think that one’s first year is the time to plan and do the grand and glorious things you always dreamed of doing – to rearrange the classroom for group activities, to give different kinds of assessments and assignments. In your second time around, you’ll have even less time to make revisions than you expect.  You even have a little bit of leeway early on in your job, as it’s somewhat expected that you’re still finding your footing as an instructor – and it’s OK if you have some stumbles, especially if you handle them with humility.

But sometimes I had to start small. As a junior faculty member, you don't always have the control you’d like over your teaching environment. During my first year teaching laboratories at my new job, I had to use previously-developed course materials, which weren't always my favorites. But rather than be frustrated at that, I looked for opportunities to infuse research-based teaching strategies into those labs – turning around individual exercises into opportunities for group discussion, or having students make predictions about the outcomes of lab experiments rather than simply verifying the stated concepts.

The key advice I would give to someone with a CER background who starts a teaching position is this: In CER, we believe we can apply the data-driven model of science to improve the quality of instruction and enhance student learning. We’re trained to be data-driven in how we approach student learning. So model that (with humility) for your colleagues. Create opportunities to talk about teaching, because we do that too infrequently. And don’t be afraid to bring as much as you can into the classroom right from the start, in both big and small ways.

Maybe it looks a little different from faculty with research-centered positions. Maybe a smaller fraction of what I do during the day ends up in peer-reviewed journals or presented at conferences. But I’m still applying my CER background, and, by taking it directly to the classroom every day, I’m doing in it a way I love.

Seth Anthony
seth.anthony@gmail.com
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Oregon Institute of Technology
(Graduate work in CER at Colorado State University with Dawn Rickey)

by Nathaniel Grove

It has now been a little over three years since I accepted my current position at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.  It was a time filled with great excitement, and concurrently, great stress and anxiety.  One of my recurring nightmares involved research: sure, I had all of these big ideas – and perhaps even a notion or two about how to pursue them – but would anyone actually be interested in working with me to help execute those plans?  Three years later, it has been gratifying to see many of my fears allayed, but the build up of my research group certainly wasn’t something that happened overnight, and in the process, I have come to rely heavily on the involvement of undergraduate researchers.  Although many of us are passionate about undergraduate education and are equally keen to involve undergraduate students in our research, it has been my experience that as a group, undergraduates have very different research needs and goals than their graduate student counterparts.  What I offer below are some reflections on my experiences working with undergraduate research students.

Think about how to “sell” your research.  People often speak about having an elevator pitch, a short summary of your research that can be quickly and concisely conveyed to casual acquaintances.  When initially interacting with potential undergraduate researchers, I often find it helpful to have an even simpler description prepared – one single sentence that passes the “Thanksgiving Table Test,” a statement that anyone can understand and that immediately conveys the importance of the research to a non-chemistry audience (relatives seated around the dinner table at Thanksgiving, for example).  Instead of telling potential research students that he is interested in studying the chemistry of air-sea exchange processes, one of my colleagues instead tells students he is interested in better understanding the chemistry related to global warming.  Although both are accurate descriptors of the phenomena he researches, one is immediately relatable and emphasizes just how important the work truly is.

Spend some time at the beginning getting to know potential researchers and clearly articulate your expectations before agreeing to anything.  The first time I received an email from a student asking if spots were available in my group, I was ecstatic; obviously my fears of having to do all of the research myself were unfounded.  When I actually met with her, however, I was surprised to see how little she knew about what I did.  When I asked her what she hoped to gain from working in my group, she told me she was planning to use the knowledge and skills she gained to cure cancer.  While there are faculty in my department that are working towards those ends, my research clearly did not fit the bill!  So, take some time to get to know your potential researchers.  What do they expect to learn from their experiences?  What special skills/knowledge can they bring to the table? How much time do they expect to spend working on research each week? How many semesters do they anticipate doing research with you?  At the same time, do not forget about your new colleagues: they can be invaluable sources of information about how suitable some students may be to conducting independent research.   

Projects for undergraduate researchers must be carefully structured. Under the right conditions, undergraduate researchers can be just as productive as graduate students; however, this is dependent upon a carefully structured research experience.  Because of the nature of their schedules which often makes it difficult to devote large amounts of uninterrupted time to research, and the fact that many undergraduates may not get involved in research until their junior or senior years, I have found it helpful to take a larger, more complex project and break it up into smaller, modular pieces with defined starting and ending points.  In other words, a project that might normally be given to a single graduate student to work on over the course of several years, may instead be accomplished by several undergraduate students working alone or in small groups over the same period of time.  It then becomes my responsibility to pull the individual pieces together at the end of the process.

Keep your eyes (and ears) open and don’t be afraid to start recruiting early.  Many of us in the CER community teach introductory-level chemistry courses – either general chemistry or organic chemistry.  These courses can be wonderful sources of undergraduate researchers.  It has been my experience that some of my colleagues are hesitant to accept students into their research groups until much later in their academic careers.  The argument goes that to be successful researchers, students need robust content knowledge to draw upon, and there is certainly something to be said about that.  At the same time, however, the students that I have recruited directly from my general chemistry courses have been among the best and are typically quite excited about the opportunity to engage in research.  Although it takes time and effort to “fill in the gaps” in their background, my students have been very receptive to doing so, and once complete, I have students who have spent or will spend 2.5 – 3 years conducting research in my group.  Such long-term experience is priceless and well worth the initial investment in time and resources.   

Look around for resources available for undergraduate research at your institution.  At almost all of the institutions I have been associated with, some level of funding has been available to support undergraduate students as they go about conducting their research.  Some institutions may provide money to purchase supplies; others may provide travel funds to present the research at meetings or conferences.  If you are lucky, your institution may provide both!  Once you have agreed to have undergraduate students work with you, it is never a bad idea to ask around and see if any of these funding options are available to you and your students.  Also keep in mind that many local ACS sections also provide travel assistance for students to travel to regional and national ACS meetings.  

Above all, be patient.   These are undergraduate students we are talking about, and on occasion even the most mature are going to act like it!  There will be times when they do not finish work within the requested timeframe or when they will email you at 2:30 am the night before your weekly meeting with questions because they did not listen closely enough the first time you explained how you wanted that statistical analysis completed.  Take a deep breath and remember what it was like when you were in their shoes not all that long ago. 

Nathaniel Grove
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
General Chemistry Coordinator
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of North Carolina Wilmington

What does a graduate program in CER look like and how do you find one?

by Allie Brandriet, Miami University, OH

This blog is based on a presentation that I gave in the What is Chemistry Education Research (CER)? symposium at the 2013 spring ACS National Meeting. The purpose of this symposium was to offer an introduction to the field of CER for those who may not be familiar with the discipline. My hope for this blog is that it can be used as a tool for students interested in pursuing graduate level degrees in CER. Please pass it along to students who may be interested!

Introduction
My name is Allie Brandriet, and I am (currently) at the end of my fourth year of graduate school at Miami University. However, I didn’t walk into my undergraduate institution knowing that I wanted to pursue CER. In fact, I started out in an animal science program intending to become a Veterinarian. After taking courses, I found that I really enjoyed chemistry and started pursuing a B.S. in chemistry. While at Saint Cloud State University (SCSU) I met Dr. Rebecca Krystyniak, a CER faculty member, and started conducting research with her. I also participated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at the University of Montana with Dr. Mark Cracolice. I am sharing these experiences with you to show you that there is no “typical” way for a student to become involved in CER. I feel that each graduate student that I have met has had a unique path that has led them to CER. You have many options!

I just want to start with a quick caveat: this blog is in no way meant to be an all-encompassing description of CER graduate programs. All programs are different! This blog is meant to describe programs that are based in chemistry departments. This means that CER is a research driven division of chemistry much like any other division (e.g. organic, physical, analytical, etc…). The CER programs described below do not include education as a double-major or a teaching certificate in addition to a chemistry degree. If you would like to share other experiences, I highly encourage commenting at the bottom of this blog!

Chemistry program requirements
CER is a division of chemistry, much like any other division. As a CER graduate student you will take entrance exams, courses, qualifying & oral examinations (PhD only), and defend your dissertation/thesis exactly like any graduate student in your department. For the sake of brevity, I will not describe these aspects.

CER-specific program requirements
As a CER graduate student, you will conduct PhD or M.S. research in CER (see below). However, in addition you will also have some variety of bench-chemistry research as a requirement. This is a really difficult topic to discuss succinctly because it varies so much from program to program. At Miami University our bench research is called the cognate, and it can be educationally focused (such as creating a laboratory for undergraduate students) or purely bench-chemistry (such as synthesizing an organic molecule). Either way, the purpose of the project is to build students’ bench-chemistry skills and to learn more about specific chemistry content. The cognate can be highly tailored to your interests, and it can be done concurrently with your CER research. Other programs require the bench-chemistry research to be completed before you start your CER research. In some cases you may write and defend a thesis to receive a M.S. degree in your bench-chemistry work. Find out as much information as you can about the bench-chemistry requirement at the different programs that you are pursuing; ask about the pros and cons of the requirements so that you can make an informed decision that best fits your future career goals.

In addition, all chemistry graduate students will pass entrance exams or take courses to fulfill chemistry proficiencies (e.g. organic, physical, analytical, etc…), and CER students will also take courses in their chosen bench-chemistry content area. Further, CER students take additional courses for their CER work which may include: CER methods (statistics and/or qualitative methods), educational psychology, curriculum development, etc… A few schools also offer CER specific courses in their departments.

CER research
CER researchers study teaching and learning in chemistry. To do this we generally use rigorous and thoughtful data collection methods such as interviewing students and distributing surveys. Much like other chemistry graduate students, CER students conduct thorough literature reviews, determine research questions, collect & analyze data, make conclusions, and publish their research in a variety of science education and CER specific journals (such as http://pubs.acs.org/journal/jceda8). Examples of CER research projects may include:

• Assessing student understanding
• Assessing student affective outcomes (relating to attitudes, feelings, motivation, etc…)
• Creating and testing a curriculum intervention
• Improving the chemistry laboratory

I make it sound so easy here, but I have to say, graduate school is quite a challenge. Along with working on your CER project, you may be working on qualifying or oral exams, coursework, bench-chemistry experiments, going to conferences, writing manuscripts, attending seminars, and teaching an undergraduate laboratory! Don’t let this frighten you; graduate school is also very rewarding!

Financial Assistance
The good thing is that the universities know that being a graduate student is a full time job, and they don’t expect you to find outside employment. Most programs offer teaching assistantships that require teaching in an undergraduate laboratory course. This usually comes with a tuition waiver and a competitive stipend, but requires ~20 hours of work per week on top of your research, courses, and exams. If the advisor you choose to work with has external funding, you may have the option of a research assistantship that does not require teaching, and instead requires you to focus your time on your research. There are also fellowships which are available to CER graduate students that can be applied for through the National Science Foundation- Graduate Research Fellowship Programs website (www.nsfgrfp.org).

Selecting a program
I’ve given you a lot of information, but now the question is ‘how do I select a program?’ A good place to look is a website created by Dr. Stacey Lowery Bretz at Miami University: http://chemistry.miamioh.edu/bretzsl/cer/gradprograms/. This is a comprehensive list of the Ph.D. and M.S. CER programs in the U.S. Graduate programs are an average of a 5 year investment in your future, so make an informed decision. Entrance requirements for CER programs are the same as that of the chemistry department.

Further, many schools will pay for your travel, lodging, and food so that you can visit the school. When you visit, make sure to ask questions! Here is a list I compiled that may help you start your list:

• What does a “typical” day look like for graduate students in your program?
• What is the department culture? How available is the research advisor?
• What is the cost of living of the city? What financial assistance is available?
• Where are your past students now? What percentage of students complete the program?
• How is student progress evaluated?
• What are the pros and cons of the CER-specific features of the program?

If you have a chance to do CER research at your undergraduate institution, do it! This will give you the opportunity to learn about the type of work required for CER. If you do not have this option, look into Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) opportunities through the National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=5048). Schools that have CER programs and REU funding will pay you to do CER work for a summer! Contact the CER faculty at the institutions for more details about their REU program.

For more information about chemistry graduate programs, I’m going to leave you with a link to the ACS ‘Planning for Graduate Education in Chemistry’ website: http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=1122&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=2c0e283e-5941-4140-8f47-e2fecd4776dc

Good luck with your endeavors, and feel free to leave comments!

Allie Brandriet
Graduate Student
Miami University
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

by Marilyne Stains, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Two years ago, my husband and I started our tenure-track assistant professor positions in chemistry at the same institution. Although it may seem impossible to many of you, (it sure seemed impossible to us at times), the two-body problem is solvable!

My husband and I met in graduate school and we had to face the two-body problem twice: first when we looked for postdoctoral research positions and then again when we looked for academic positions. I hope to share in this post lessons that we have learned from our experiences and experiences of friends and colleagues who faced this same problem.

You are not the only ones!
While we were looking for academic positions, my husband and I start looking around for assistant professors in chemistry who had their spouse in academia as well. We could count them on one hand! As a result, we thought that we would be the unusual and problematic candidate that would be perceived as less than ideal by most departments. Well, we could not have been more wrong! Indeed, approximately, 80% of women in STEM fields have an academic partner. Moreover, in my department, beyond my husband and I, three of the four other assistant professors were married when they were hired and two needed positions in academia for their spouse. Two other senior faculty have their spouses working in the department as a professor or research professor. Clearly, this is a much more common situation than we initially thought and the two-body problem is solvable! Moreover, departments are aware of the commonality of this situation and can be supportive!

Compromise
Some would say compromise is the key to a successful marriage. I would say compromise or at least the willingness to compromise is the key to a successful two-body problem resolution! While my husband and I were lucky enough not to have to compromise anything for our current positions, we had several honest and difficult conversations during the application and interview processes. The easiest conversations were during the application process. We both thought that it would be easier to find a tenure-track assistant professor position in biochemistry than in CER based on prior years of monitoring the job market. We had thus agreed that we would both apply to tenure-track assistant professor position in our respective field but that I would be ok with working at a two-year or four-year college if necessary. It turns out that the year I went on the market, there were several great CER positions. Moreover the interview timeline for CER positions was earlier than the one for the biochemistry positions. We suddenly realized that maybe he would be the one who has to compromise, something we had not thought about. One department in particular was eager to push us in that direction. They provided me an offer mid-fall and bluntly told me that we were unrealistic to hope to get two tenure-track assistant professor positions in the same city and that my husband should accept what they had to offer him, which was a position at a non-research institution. The fear of not knowing if more offers will come resulted in intense conversations: what compromises were we both willing to make? What we had agreed on at the beginning was no longer applicable and both of us had to review what we thought was the best for us individually, but also for us as a couple. Based on this experience, I would provide the following advice:

• Both of you should consider and talk about what you will be willing to do if s/he gets a job and you don’t before and during the interview process.    
• Do not fall under the pressure of eager departments who would do or say anything to get you there. While it is really flattering, you and your spouse are a team. Resentment is an awful feeling that never ends in a gold wedding anniversary! You need to understand what constitutes an appropriate compromise for your spouse and be willing to accept it. For example, in my situation, I knew in my heart that he would have been miserable not doing research and even though I was scared I would not get other offers, I knew I could do CER in other settings than my ideal plan.

To tell or not to tell!
When you thought the most difficult part was over, here comes the interview! Beyond the normal stress of an academic interview (providing coherent one or two talks, keeping straight the name of the ten or so faculty you will meet during one day, not spilling food all over yourself during lunch and/or dinner), the two-body problem brings another level of stress: do I talk about my “trailing” spouse? If so when is it appropriate? As the Nature paper listed below indicates, there is no universal strategy! I have tested two. During the first couple of interviews, I had decided that if I was getting a good feeling about their interest I would let them know by the end of the day that I have a trailing spouse. I felt it was only fair to provide them with the full picture since there is a high price tag with a faculty line that requires extensive planning and I didn’t want to seem deceiving. I would typically announce it to the chair of the department since s/he would be the one to have to deal with the consequences and planning. While some reacted positively, for others, there were some clear changes in facial expressions after the announcement. After a while, I decided that it may be in my best interest not to tell until I receive the offer even though I felt uncomfortable about it. This was not ideal solution either. Departments may take them weeks to obtain authorization for another assistant professor line and to find funding for the associated start-up package. In the meantime, their plan B candidate may accept a position and there is thus a high risk for them to lose both candidates. From your end, it is also not ideal since you do not know if they can come through with the offer and you may have to juggle other offers while waiting for an outcome.

In our situation, we both had offers from two similar places: in one case, the department chair was doing all he could to find money for my husband; in the other, the NSF ADVANCE program was present and facilitated the process from the day I received the invitation to interview. The NSF ADVANCE made a huge difference for us by preparing the upper administration to the prospect of doing a spousal hire early on, removing the stress of deciding whether or not I should tell them about my husband, and providing funding to support the cost of this extra hire. At the end of the day, it came down to deadlines and certainty of the outcome. It was clear Nebraska could provide us with everything we wanted. 

The dual-body problem is challenging but not insurmountable. At the end of the day, it comes down to you and your spouse and your love for each other. Some couples live a part for a while, others compromise location or put their aspirations on hold for a while. We have the following expression in French to describe this process: Tous les chemins mènent à Rome (all roads lead to Rome). There is a road for you and your spouse: it might just not be straight and free of obstacles!

Finally, I would like to share the following links:

• This webpage provides case studies of couple who bit the two-body problems: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep/jobsearch/dualcareer.html
•  A Nature article on negotiating for two: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/100826/pdf/nj7310-1145a.pdf
• Interesting articles on the two-body problem:
  • http://www.nebhe.org/thejournal/beyond-the-two-body-problem-increasing-recruitment-roi-with-dual-career-couples-support/
  • http://www.fulviofrisone.com/attachments/article/423/The%20Two%20Body%20Problem%20Dual%20Career%20Couple%20Hiring.pdf

Cliff and I in the chemistry classroom of my high school in France the day before our French wedding.

Marilyne Stains, Assistant Professor
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Department of Chemistry 

by Michelle Dean, Kennesaw State University

I am now three years into a position as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Education and taking on teaching, research and service activities I absolutely love and three years ago would have never imagined I would be doing.  Upon completing my undergraduate degree I changed my career trajectory from secondary education in chemistry to that of a chemical education university faculty member.  This change was not initiated by a horrible student teaching experience, but rather simply learning that such a profession existed.  I graduated with my undergraduate degree from an institution where if chemical education research was taking place it did not readily involve student researchers or shared with students, and therefore I was clueless about this alternative career path which blended two things I had a passion for: chemistry and education.

I again found myself in a similar position as I completed my Ph.D in chemical education.  I envisioned landing a faculty position where I could continue my graduate research on modeling and visualization in organic chemistry.  My research plans strongly reflected this too.  However, as I began searching for jobs a few popped up that seemed to fit all my interests without allowing me to leave anything behind:  an assistant professor of chemical education whose focus would be on teacher preparation.  Today I teach courses in our chemistry and chemistry education degree tracks, work with local teachers, visit high school classrooms regularly to coach pre-service teachers, and research how modeling practices are implemented in the high school setting.  Could it get any better?

Yes, I think it could.  It would be wonderful to have a strong community of CER members who are active in teacher preparation collaborating and shedding light on related issues such as how to effectively recruit secondary chemistry education students and support them during their induction phase.  However, the number of us involved in discipline-specific teacher preparation is limited, but the need for faculty in these positions is growing as evident in the number of job ads that have appeared over the past couple of years. This is likely due to numerous changes in K-12 education, including but not limited to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)1 and Common Core Standards2, as well as a push to evaluate the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs, a product of Race to the Top Initiatives.  As more faculty positions target chemistry teacher preparation it is imperative that the CER community is doing what it can to help CER graduate students gain experiences that will allow them to be marketable for such a position.  Upon completion of a few faculty searches, a mix of successful and failed searches, a few characteristics have stood out about making a candidate more marketable for a position of this nature. 

1. One of the strongest attributes that one can bring to this type of position is gaining time in the high school classroom.  The structure of high school administration and the day-to-day schedule is often quite different from that at the college-level.  Although, a graduate student may not be too far removed from their high school days as a chemistry student, one does not fully understand the operational agenda until they are on the other side of the fence.  This experience will also allow one to gain an understanding of the governing notions that affect classroom practice, such as curriculum mapping and pacing guides for the semester. 
2. As mentioned before, with the numerous changes that are taking place in K-12 education at the national level it is causing many states to rethink their standards and grade assessments.  Since the changes occurring at the national level were not initiated by federal agencies, states are not mandated to adopt the changes.  Therefore, it is most helpful to understand the position the state in which you are applying takes on these changes.  A better understanding of this will allow you to discuss in an interview how you will build effective instruction to prepare new teachers to meet the demands of the changes within that state.  
3. Develop a well thought out research plan that could lead to new findings that may be related to areas such as chemistry teacher preparation, chemistry teacher recruitment, chemistry teacher induction, or chemistry teaching in the high school setting.  Although, you may find my story contrary to this I was able to adapt my research plans to address modeling in the chemistry high school classroom, which I am currently working on now.  When proposing this type of research agenda it is important to consider the special measures that need to be taken if minors will be included in a research study.  Also, since two agencies will be involved in the research a separate IRB is often required by the school district.  It is also helpful to do some research on local and state education funding agencies, as their programs will vary from state to state.  Once you have conducted your research consider where you will disseminate your findings.  It may not be at a tradition CER venue such as the Biennial Conference for Chemical Education (BCCE) or a National American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting, but instead at the National Association for Research on Science Teaching (NARST) Conference or at an Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE) national conference.  Similarly this goes to publications too.

Addressing these three points certainly allows a candidate to be set apart from the rest of the pool and will put you in contention for landing that dream job. To catalyze your progress once in the position it is helpful to get involved in student teaching observations and other field placement work as soon as possible.  This will allow you to quickly create strong working relationships with the chemistry teachers in your community and build an understanding of the state chemistry standards..  In the area of education, service is vital to maintaining a strong community of practice between your college teacher preparation program and local teachers.  However this can quickly overshadow your research and teaching, which are often valued more in a tenure decision.  Therefore the best advice that I received from a colleague as I took the position at Kennesaw, was to turn your service into research.  This will allow you to make the most of your valuable time as a new faculty.

1.  Next Generation Science Standards:  http://www.nextgenscience.org/
2.  Common Core State Standards Initiative:  http://www.corestandards.org/

Michelle Dean, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Assistant Professor
Kennesaw State University

by Jessica Reed, Iowa State University

Hello Younger Chemistry Education Scholars!

Welcome back to a new school year and a new adventure. I hope you had a productive summer, and are thinking ahead to what goals you want to accomplish this school year. With that in mind, I wanted to get your feedback about the YCES’ Blog.

The goal of the blog is to connect beginning scholars of chemistry education (graduate students, post docs, and early career faculty) and to provide some professional development via blog posts related to content relevant to this population.  What kinds of topics would you like to see featured on the blog? What’s a question that you have about grad school, life as a post doc, or starting a career? You are likely not the only person who has this question and has been struggling to find the answer!

We’ll be updating the blog with new content soon, but in the meantime, please post any ideas you have for featured blog posts. This will better help us identify not only content for the blog, but also writers who can best represent those topics or experiences.

If you’d like to contribute content to the blog, please contact Jessica Reed at jjreed@iastate.edu.

Best wishes for the 2013-2014 academic year!

By Brittany Christian, Miami University, OH

I have always enjoyed learning random facts and tidbits of knowledge for the simple sake of learning. Hence, it should come as no surprise that one of my favorite places to visit growing up was the museum where knowledge was literally pasted on the walls. The best part of visiting museums was the independence I had to explore any display I wished without the dread of taking a quiz at the end! This unstructured environment gave me a satisfying sense of freedom to learn my way and at my pace.

As chemistry education researchers, we are all familiar with researching the challenges that students face inside of the classroom and laboratory. This area of formal education still has numerous research questions worth investigating in order to further improve chemistry education. However, chemistry education is not limited to students sitting in classroom chairs.

Branching out of the classroom/lab
Informal science education (ISE) concerns learning science in an out-of-school environment and often occurs in daily forms such as watching television, going on a walk, participating in recreational activities, or visiting a science center (museum, zoo, planetarium etc.). The ISE community has research interests in the areas of knowledge, engagement, attitude, behavior and skills. These areas of impact overlap well with CER initiatives.

My master’s thesis investigated learning outcomes and attitudinal changes from a chemistry museum exhibit on chemical and physical change. For this project I designed and built the exhibit that would serve as the focal point of the study. The quality of free-choice learning that I enjoy at science centers can prove to be quite the hurdle for research! Therefore, the ability to combine multiple techniques for data collection is highly beneficial in order to generate research outcomes that will contribute to future exhibits and programs.

Collaborations between chemistry education researchers and the ISE sector may prove to be a mutual exchange of research techniques and findings. For instance, have you ever considered gathering qualitative data by using a Mad Lib exercise? What knowledge about chemistry learning progressions and essential prior knowledge could you contribute to help an exhibit designer? This idea of melding CER with ISE is very fresh and presents a virtually untapped opportunity for the science education community. If this has helped to spike your interest, I encourage you to take a look at the starter resources I have placed at the end of this post.

Careers in science centers
I will be honest; this is not an easy career path to start. Most science centers focus on life and earth sciences, leaving a small demand for chemistry experts. The current pattern however may be slowly in the midst of changing as chemistry’s presence in informal education is growing.

The following represent a few of the many professional roles available in the field: exhibit designer, educator, curator, development/grant writer, and evaluator. Each position requires a different skillset. Start by researching positions you are interested in and take note that smaller science centers require one person to cover multiple areas.
Network! This is the most important task you can do to help start your career. The informal science industry is a small, tight-knit group of friendly and helpful people. However, they cannot help you if you do not introduce yourself! Networking takes time, but the benefits from meeting new people and learning about your field are priceless. Therefore, make use of networking at both local science centers and professional organizations.

The one consistent piece of advice I have received from museum professionals is to take the time to volunteer, intern or work part-time at a science center. Even though a job may not currently be open, showing off your strong work ethic and willingness to learn about the institution places you in a ripe position when a job opening does arise. Persistence is key! It may take a year or more of volunteering at the same science center before a job matching your interests opens.

Starter ISE Resources
Readings:
Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (1992). The Museum Experience. Washington, DC: Whalesback Books.
National Research Council (NRC). (2009). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Organizations:
Association of Science Technology Centers (ASTC)    www.astc.org
Visitor Studies Association (VSA)    www.visitorstudies.org
Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE)   www.informalscience.org

by Erik Epp, Chemistry Product Manager at WebAssign

As someone who has taken an unusual route from a chemical education degree, I have been asked to share some of my experiences in the education technology industry.  I’ll start with the disclaimer that what follows is qualitative in nature and has N=1.

What I Do
My role at WebAssign is Chemistry Product Manager.  This entails determining what direction our chemistry offering should take and facilitating the process.  I act as a subject-matter expert for our sales and marketing teams, as an educational researcher for our development efforts, and as a liaison to the chemical education and technology education communities.  I visit campuses and attend conferences as well as follow the major journals and social media in education and research.

Academia or Industry
I started my graduate career with my heart set on being a faculty member of a small, primarily-undergraduate institution. What changed along the way?  Graduate school allowed me to see whether what I was doing was something I truly enjoyed.  I found myself drawn towards teaching, technology, and data analysis.  Later, during my post-doc (a visiting faculty position), I found that the fraction of time that I spent doing the things I was passionate about was much smaller than I had anticipated.  Ultimately I decided to trade my passion of classroom teaching in favor of spending more of my time on my other passions and making a difference in the teaching of thousands of teachers.

Skills for Industry
My chemical education research background provided me strong skills in data analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, that have served me well.  I regularly collect and analyze qualitative data on issues professors are facing from sales representatives, customer support representatives, and from interacting with faculty members themselves.  This data includes what faculty needs are unmet and how WebAssign might assist the learning process.  I also pull quantitative data from a vast database to run analyses and present findings, and ultimately bring about data-driven decisions that shape the business.

Advice for Those Interested in Alt-Ac Careers
If you are considering an Alt-Ac career, the first thing I encourage you to do is research what is out there.  One of the easiest ways is to visit the vendor exhibition at conferences and ask the representatives about what they do, what path lead them there, and what roles for an education researcher or content expert exist in their organization.  This also has the benefit of helping you network, which can bring opportunities to you now and in the future. Just be sure to remember to hand out your business cards and collect cards in return.
I attend many of the ACS National and Regional Meetings, along with more specialized conferences (BCCE, Chem.Ed., Gordon), and am happy to discuss potential options and opportunities in the education technology field in more depth – look for me in the red shirt and black pants.

Erik Epp is the Chemistry Product Manager at WebAssign.  He earned a B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Michigan and University of Chicago, respectively, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Education from Purdue University. 

By: Stephanie Ryan, Ph.D., Science Test Development Specialist, American Institutes for Research

A common misconception that many graduate students (and others) have is that there is a single career path after the completion of a doctorate degree. We are all familiar with the traditional route in academia.

After graduation (or before depending on the time of year you finish), you either secure a prestigious Postdoc or you find an Assistant Professor position where you will begin your own research group. Then comes the tenure process and fingers crossed you are promoted to an Associate Professor. That dotted line is a hurdle that some do not cross and for others it is merely a step on their path to becoming a Professor and perhaps even a Distinguished Professor. This ladder looks something like the picture on the right. Straight up and you climb the rungs in order to make it to each level. In some ways, this can make graduation feel like you’ve limited your options. I have listened to many people struggle as they consider accepting a position that they don’t seem convinced is the right path for them—simply as a means to an end. A piece of advice that was given to me rings true here: “Five to seven years is a long time to be unhappy.” It is true- life is short. Do you want to spend a significant portion of your life doing something you don’t enjoy?

I’m here to tell you that a doctorate degree actually opens up a variety of paths you may not have considered. And that these paths and the academia track are not mutually exclusive!  A Ph.D. in Chemistry Education (or Learning Sciences in my case allows you to be a multi-faceted and ideal candidate for many positions. You are a trained bench chemist and you have experience with educational theories, methodologies and analysis techniques. This leaves you with a lot of opportunities! 

You may decide that the traditional academia route is the one for you—but you may not have known that you are not limited to Chemistry Education programs.  Depending on your background and interests, you may find a home in a Science Education or Curriculum Development program. Your degree opens many doors and going through one door may lead to another door. Trajectories can cross. The traditional view of Chemistry Education Research (CER) is that we are at the intersection of the Teaching of Chemistry and Research on Learning.

But the truth is: It can be so much more than that!  There are a series of questions you need to ask yourself. First and foremost: What do I enjoy doing? For some of you reading this, it may be that you are interested in teaching but want to apply research findings to your classroom. Others reading this may only be interested in conducting research on how students learn chemistry. Again, this traditional view of CER might be exactly what some readers envision for their lives. All of these are valid choices that lead to a very happy and successful career. Life is too short to spend your days resenting your job. There are lots of resources out there about the traditional path, but I’d like to spend some time to share other avenues with you.

There are two types of jobs out there: soft money and hard money. Soft money is grant money. If you accept a grant-supported position (typically research-oriented), you will be working contract to contract. Your job will be dependent on the funding climate and you will likely work on another person’s project. This gives you the opportunity to work on a variety of different projects, but you will not be the ‘owner’ of a project. These jobs can be very fulfilling and engaging. However, a consideration when thinking of soft money position is to always have your next project lined up. Money can run out and it is possible for a contract to be cut short. The other type of position is funded with hard money. Hard money is money that is provided by the university or a company that you work for. This type of job is more secure but performance goals are more important. You also may be the owner of the project.

Teaching is your passion?

If you answered my question with: Teaching is my passion but research isn’t really my thing, this section is for you! In general, you can teach people science at any level in informal or formal contexts. This can range from high school students to training programs for adults. Rather than focus on each of these examples, I will elaborate on a few of them. Other blog writers have described some of these positions in previous posts. 

Instructor at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI)
As the name suggests, PUIs have a predominately undergraduate population. They may have a Master’s program as well. The bulk of your time would be spent teaching multiple courses and mentoring undergraduates. Your teaching evaluations will be instrumental in your overall movement on this trajectory. There are tenure track positions and these are likely hard money positions. If you conduct research on student learning, it would occur in the summer months or in your free time. An example of a PUI is Oregon Institute of Technology. Check out earlier blog posts to learn more about the rewarding path of teaching at a PUI!

Instructor at a Community College
Community colleges are 2-year institutions that prepare students to enter the university at the completion of their degree. If you teach at a community college, you likely will not teach advanced levels of chemistry (e.g. analytical chemistry). These positions typically do not have tenure track positions available and are likely contracted hard money positions. If you teach at a community college you are likely to teach multiple courses to a largely non-traditional student population. Your main task is to develop students for university. There is a lot of research currently being conducted at and about community colleges. If you are interested in conducting research, research will likely occur in the summer and there is the potential for collaboration with larger institutions.

Other Teaching Opportunities (in general)
 You may choose to teach in informal learning contexts. These can include museum education programs, after school outreach programs, and non-profit organizations. Many of these places offer learning environments for field trips or additional science experiences for students. They seek instructors for these positions and specialist to advise the design of the programs. Some positions may be short-term contracts and some may be full time. They could be a mixture of hard and soft money.

You can work with pre-and post-service teachers through professional development (PD). There are a lot of curricula out there and many have PD programs for teachers. Depending on your content expertise, you could be qualified to design and implement PD programs. In this type of position you could end up coaching teachers in their implementation of the curriculum and make site visits. This could be a soft money position if you become a PD specialist for a research project, or hard money with a textbook company.

Yet another option is to teach high school chemistry. This could require additional training but in some contexts it may not be necessary. For example, charter schools and private schools may not require a certificate for teaching. These positions are hard money positions, but do depend on the state’s funding climate.

Your degree also positions you well to work in the field of assessment development. This type of role requires a strong content knowledge and an understanding of how students learn. Quality assessments use questions that are well aligned to standards and assess the specific knowledge that a student has so that their understanding is truly tested — and not their test-taking skills. Your skills as a teacher will be especially useful here as you will think of the best ways to assess content as if they were students in your own classroom. Often, you will also be working with teachers who will be administering the test in their classroom to develop items. These positions can be with publishing companies, curriculum developers, or even non-profit organizations and are not tenure track. The funding for these positions is a mixture of hard and soft money with an emphasis on contract work.

Adults need training too! Many large corporations have sophisticated training programs and outreach to develop talent at their organization or to train on expensive equipment. These programs need training specialists and consultants to help advise how better to train employees. These positions are hard money and do not offer a tenure track.

What I hope that you take away from this post is that 1) Do what you love. 2) Your degree opens doors- research them! 3) One path is not better than another- but there is one that is the best for you. And guess what? One path does not preclude another. Rather than a ladder as depicted above, it is more like this.

Research is your passion?
If you answered my question with: Research is my passion but teaching isn’t really my thing, be sure to stay tuned for my next blog post.

Stephanie Ryan is a Science Test Development Specialist at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). She earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Saint Mary's College, an M.S. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

by Stephanie Philipp, Miami University, Oxford, OH

A common thread I have seen in recent blog posts is that career trajectories are as varied as the people who live them and mine is no exception.  My story is a bit different from others that have been shared, in that my journey from chemistry major to chemistry education researcher has taken more time with quite a few stops along the way.  If you are just starting a career, know that it is entirely possible that what you envision for your vocation may be far different from what you eventually choose or feel called to do, and that a career is not like a projectile moving in a smooth parabolic path, but maybe more like a naturally winding stream!

Being a chemist
After earning a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Florida and an M.S. in analytical chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was ready to start a career as an analytical chemist in the environmental science and engineering field.  I had no trouble landing interesting, well-paying jobs with small businesses focused on helping their clients (like the EPA) develop effective analytical methods or maintain compliance with environmental laws.  This was fortunate because we moved four times during the 13 years that my chemist husband worked his way up the corporate ladder in product development for consumer product and food companies. My philosophy during those years was to “bloom where I was planted” as I balanced a career with the busy life of a young family.  Many of the skills that were valued in my jobs as a laboratory scientist and methods development project manager are common to every job in every field I have worked: chemistry content knowledge, communication skills (listening, speaking and writing), resourcefulness, and an ability to collaborate with, and learn from, others.

Being a science teacher
After eight years, I needed a break from the heavy travel schedule and long hours of a project manager while trying to raise two small children.  Because much of my identity is tied to being a scientist and I wanted to remain active in the field, I took an opportunity to teach a class on physical science to non-science majors at a nearby liberal arts college. That’s when my career trajectory shifted the first time.  Some of the skills I needed in order to teach college students were similar to the skills I had needed to successfully educate my former clients about what they needed to do to stay in compliance with the law or how I could use analytical chemistry principles to help meet their needs for effective measurement methods for air pollutants.  However, in all my education, I had never been taught how people learn.  This did not seem to bother the college at which I taught, but even though I had the best intentions and used my intuition about how I had learned scientific concepts, I am sure some of my students were a bit frustrated with my clumsy pedagogy.  I felt very strongly about wanting to share my enthusiasm and knowledge of science, especially chemistry, with others, but I wanted to do it effectively, so I enrolled in a teacher licensure program and embarked upon a career very different from scientific consulting.

Since becoming a licensed K-12 teacher, I have realized that teaching can be some of the most important work that I could do.  I often told my first students, 6th graders at the same Florida middle school I had attended as a child, that all of the work I had done as a chemist would soon be obsolete—newer, more effective methods and instrumentation would be developed, laws would change, reports would be discarded, and new ones written.  However, the work we did together in the classroom, struggling to explain how the world works and how we could develop our minds, would never be obsolete, but would be a way to take us to new places and opportunities.  They were impressed that I would give up being a scientist (a glamorous job according to their thinking) to spend my days with them.  What they didn’t realize was that I was still a scientist, only instead of studying the decomposition of industrial waste, I was studying how their minds learned the concepts I was trying to teach.  I taught middle school and high school (AP Physics and general chemistry and even freshman biology) for 5 years, during which I became increasingly curious about how science could be taught more effectively.  Why did everyone say “science is hard” or “I hated chemistry class”?  I have always thought learning about anything (deep conceptual learning) was hard work, but exhilarating nonetheless.  What were we doing as educators that continued to perpetuate this myth that learning about science is not satisfying?

Being a scholar
I continued that line of questioning when I chose to go back to school for a doctorate in science education (curriculum and instruction) at the University of Louisville.  In that program, I was happily able to combine parts of my two previous lives—the questions I had raised as a teacher and the research skills I had developed as a chemist.  Rigorous research questions in science education are not always content-specific, but are almost always grounded in theories from learning sciences or developmental psychology.  I feel very strongly, as do many other science educators, that content specificity has a welcome and essential place in research on education, and that any artificial barriers between science education research and discipline-based educational research (like CER) should not be supported.  It’s all a matter of focus and the grain-size of your investigation.  As a scholar who has experienced being a chemist, a teacher, a science education researcher, and now a chemistry education researcher in Ellen Yezierski’s group, I feel very comfortable with a having a foot in both science education and chemistry education research.  The emphasis for all researchers, in education or otherwise, should be in doing and disseminating good work: creating a solid foundation from research that has been previously done, generating important and investigate-able research questions, creating research design that is suitable for answering the questions, using instruments and data analysis techniques appropriately, and carefully drawing thoughtful conclusions that can move our knowledge base forward.

I did not foresee, as a newly minted chemist out of grad school, that I would find teaching and learning to be an enjoyable and rewarding career.  I have needed many of the skills I developed as a chemist to pursue a career as an education researcher and teacher, so the transitions were not difficult for me.  It has also helped that I love working with people!  The most helpful resources I have found are others who have shared their love of learning with me, undergraduate advisor Sam Colgate, doctoral advisor Tom Tretter, my current mentors Ellen Yezierski and Stacey Lowery Bretz, and especially the students and teachers with whom I have had the honor to share time in the classroom.  The path has been winding, but the views along the way have been inspiring!  

Stephanie Philipp is a Post-Doctoral Chemical Education Research Associate for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miami University