{"id":6821,"date":"2012-10-18T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T22:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/?p=6821"},"modified":"2022-09-22T15:46:54","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T22:46:54","slug":"learning-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/2012\/10\/18\/learning-chemistry\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Chemistry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If you ask Richard Nafshun, he\u2019ll say that one of the quickest ways to get teenagers interested in chemistry is to put on a good show. The idea was foremost on his mind when he collaborated with local middle school teachers and Oregon State graduate students to put on the \u201cChemistry Show,\u201d at the LaSells Stewart Center this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when upwards of 1200 middle-schoolers and their families showed up, he was glad he had made things interesting. The senior instructor of chemistry at Oregon State is passionate about teaching and outreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had lots of fun with exploding balloons,\u201d he says. \u201cSo you take an uninflated balloon, hook it up to the hydrogen tank, and tie it off. You have it on a string, tape a candle to a meter stick, put the candle underneath the balloon\u2026 and BOOM!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t the only time sparks flew during the show\u2019s 20 demonstrations, but for Nafshun, who holds both a master\u2019s degree in science education and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Oregon State, the spectacle is only part of the process\u2014learning is the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past 15 years, Nafshun has dedicated himself to creating better chemistry classes for students, especially in the lecture setting. He\u2019s pioneered online chemistry education at Oregon State, created outreach programs for K-12 students and mentored the next generation of chemistry teachers and professors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he has been successful, too. Not only has Nafshun won numerous teaching awards, Oregon State students regularly approach Nafshun and tell him they remember his outreach events from their grade school or middle school years. Some even come back to volunteer with <\/ins>programs they experienced as grade schoolers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a real cyclic thing,\u201d he says. \u201cTo say, \u2018Wow. You were in this program, and now you\u2019re teaching where you\u2019ve been taught. And you\u2019re going to be a teacher in the future.\u2019 It makes me feel wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Collaborative Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nafshun discovered his passion for teaching when he was a chemistry undergraduate at California State University, Stanislaus. He was one of the few students there asked to serve as a teaching assistant\u2014a rare thing at a university with no graduate program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI absolutely fell in love with being a teacher,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That love was further cemented when, that summer, Nafshun took a job working for a group that did cholesterol testing in eggs and dairy products. Although he saw value in the work, he wanted to be a part of something more collaborative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile the chance for development and research was there, it seemed very independent and isolated,\u201d Nafshun says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t seem as though I was going to be part of an institutional process to make something happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing passion to a profession<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Nafshun focuses his research on instructional methods for the large classroom, and teaches general chemistry. Many of<\/ins> the lessons he creates for the lecture hall reflect what he loved about chemistry as a high school student\u2014group projects that rely on teamwork and exploration rather than rote memorization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was all that time after school meeting with fellow students, and accomplishing a project and doing scholarship that I found fabulous,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nafshun also mentors students in CH 607, his college chemistry-teaching<\/ins> seminar. He wants them to have the experience of engaging students in the lecture setting as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe develop curriculum and labs. And then the beautiful part about it is these graduate students take over the class from one week,\u201d Nafshun says. \u201cSo they work on a unit. They prepare. We talk about what demonstrations to do, teaching methods, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1997 Nafshun has mentored nearly 20 students in the seminar setting\u2014some of whom have gone on to use some of the methods Nafshun taught them at institutions like Evergreen, The <\/ins>Ohio State University, the University of Portland and Seattle Pacific, to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope they\u2019re bringing engaging instructional techniques, doing good student questioning and application-based instruction,\u201d he says. \u201cI hope that they\u2019re focusing on students working in small groups. I honestly think there\u2019s a balance in the lecture hall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Home for Science<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nafshun\u2019s input into the classroom experience isn\u2019t the only thing that works for his students\u2014the new Linus Pauling Science Center, which was completed in 2011, does as well. There are only seats for 178 students in the building\u2019s lecture hall, which helps facilitate the application of some of Nafshun\u2019s lecture content in introductory chemistry classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because some of the Center\u2019s cutting-edge research facilities like the electron microscopy lab and the nuclear magnetic resonance facility are on the main floor and encased in glass, students get a more immediate and exciting view of research in the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year they\u2019re coming out of the woodwork and asking about undergraduate research opportunities,\u201d Nafshun says. \u201cYou walk down the hall and see fundamental research, stuff that matters today. Students see it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Access for Everyone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Nafshun\u2019s more recent projects has been collaborating with colleagues in chemistry and computer science to develop a curriculum of general chemistry labs that are delivered online. They are currently being used in Oregon State\u2019s Ecampus chemistry program, and Nafshun hopes that other universities might use the curriculum, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Nafshun, online labs are the way of the future, and online education is a way for people to have access to education who wouldn\u2019t otherwise, like deployed military personnel and people living in rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started the Ecampus chemistry program nine years ago, and saw the enrollment in the online program go from two <\/ins>students to 600 a term,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the next Chemistry Show, Nafshun is trying to figure out if there\u2019s a venue in Corvallis that will hold an even bigger crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you ask Richard Nafshun, he\u2019ll say that one of the quickest ways to get teenagers interested in chemistry is to put on a good show. The idea was foremost on his mind when he collaborated with local middle school teachers and Oregon State graduate students to put on the \u201cChemistry Show,\u201d at the LaSells… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3656,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1235747],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6823,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6821\/revisions\/6823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}