Evaluation Team in Action

Dr. Frances Lawrenz and a team of two graduate students, Nathan Wood, and Beth Robelia, from the University of Minnesota are conducting the evaluation for the Active Chemistry Project. The evaluation is designed to inform the development process as well as to investigate the effectiveness of the Active Chemistry curriculum. The emphasis of the process is to evaluate if the learning goals of the program are being met and to determine the evidence of student success.

During the initial phase of the evaluation process the team has finalized their instrument development and they are now in the process of collecting teacher, student and classroom data from the Pilot Sites. They have developed a Pre Test for the Pilot Teachers to have administered to their students during the early fall and are now in the process of developing the Post Test. Pilot Teachers are expected to send in feedback materials on each Chapter as completed to the evaluation team. The team will log, copy, summarize and send copied materials to all the PIs and Writers.

The approach is to be able to determine students' gains in the knowledge of chemistry concepts, processes and enduring understandings. Paper and pencil surveys to all of the teachers and students involved in the pilot test will also be administered not only at the end of each Chapter but will include a synthesis survey at the end of the year. Telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews and classroom observations to a small subset of teachers and students will also be conducted. A sampling of student work from each pilot test teacher will also be collected to determine the quality of the student work produced and a small comparison group of non-Active Chemistry teachers and their students will be similarly surveyed, assessed and observed.

The Likert scale will also be used to measure the differences in student attitudes toward their capability of succeeding in science, science in general, and chemistry specifically and students' intent to take more science courses and their intent to have a career in science.

Dr. Lawrenz is the Wallace Professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota and she has served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School. Her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University are in the field of Science Education - Chemistry and Math. In 1999 she was awarded the Wallace Professorship of Teaching and Learning and has also served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School in recent years. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1993, Dr. Lawrenz spent the year at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She has authored and edited widely, including fifty-six referred publications, thirteen book chapters, and nearly 100 evaluation reports.

Beth Robelia is a Ph.D. student in Science Education at the University of Minnesota and also has a Master's Degree in Experiential Education. She has the practical experience of having taught in the classroom for three years, during one of which she taught the Active Physics curriculum. Beth is currently an evaluator for three grant projects and has been a student teacher supervisor.

Nate Wood is also a doctoral candidate in the Science Education program at the University and has been an instructor of introductory chemistry courses at both Macalester College in St. Paul and the Twin Cities branch of the University of Minnesota. In addition to the current Active Chemistry project, he has worked with Dr. Lawrenz on two other evaluation projects. Nate has also conducted research on developing strategies for identifying misconceptions that students have about the particulate nature of matter and the problems that students have in balancing equations. .