Developing Student Skills: Role of Research in the Undergraduate Curriculum

1. The development of student skills and the role of research in the undergraduate curriculum: Implications for the ACS Guidelines 0 Joel Shulman Edgar Arriaga University of Cincinnati University of Minnesota The evolution of the ACS approval process: Moving beyond the 2008 Guidelines ACS Committee on Professional Training April 8, 2013

2. What Do We Mean By “Student Skills?” 0 Can be termed: • Process skills • Soft skills • Employability skills • Nontechnical professional competencies Characteristics: • Generic and transferable • Marketable and lifelong • Wide applications that go beyond course content alone

3. 0 Examples of Student Skills and Abilities • Problem solving/Critical thinking • Laboratory safety • Chemical-literature skills • Communication, both oral and written • Team skills/Leadership • Professional ethics and social responsibility

4. 0 What Do The ACS Guidelines Say? • “Students should go beyond course content alone to be effective and productive scientists. They need to master a variety of skills that will allow them to become successful professionals.” • “Both dedicated courses and integration of learning opportunities throughout the curriculum can be used to develop student skills and provide a means for assessing them.”

5. Laboratory Safety Skills: A Lifelong Impact HAZARDS occur daily! Laboratory Safety Teaches Students about: - Minimizinghazard risks and what to do when they occur - How to Use prudent practices and protective equipment Ultimately, Lab Safety Skills teach students to: • Create a safer/healthier environment for all • Live safer, healthier, longer lives

6. Library & Information Literacy “Set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed, and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” American Library Association (ALA)

7. Team Building • “The ability to work in multidisciplinary teams is essential for a well-educated scientist.” • Enhances student learning • Is social, less competitive—not a solo race • Allows for sharing of ideas; increases listening, learning, and communication skills • Develops cooperation and reciprocity • Uses active/interactive learning techniques • Stimulates interpersonal collaboration • Develops people skills, including leadership • Industry uses the team approach to solve problems.

8. Leadership • Envision • Engage • Energize • Enable • Execute

9. Changes being considered vis-à-vis student skills • Increased focus on student skills • Introduction of a new skill on data and information management • Strengthened statements on safety and promotion of safety awareness • Development of leadership skills through teamwork • Demonstration of continuous growth in a student's skills throughout the program • Requiring a “capstone experience” for certified majors as a mechanism for imparting and evaluating these skills

10. Proposed changes to GuidelinesCHEMICAL-LITERATURE SKILLS • Students MUST • be able to carry out searches by keywords, authors, abstracts, citations, patents, structures/substructures, and registry numbers. • have ready access to databases that allow them to complete these searches (but not necessarily Chemical Abstracts). • be able to read, analyze, interpret, and cite the chemical literature as applied to answering a chemical question. • be instructed in data management, archiving,record keeping, and managing citations.

11. 0 What do students need to demonstrate currently?LABORATORY SAFETY • “Students [should] understand the concepts of safe laboratory practices and how to apply them.” • Begin safety awareness in the first lab course • Understand responsible disposal techniques • Comply with safety regulations • Understand and use MSDS • Recognize and minimize potential chemical and physical hazards in the laboratory

12. 0 Proposed changes to the GuidelinesLABORATORY SAFETY • Nothing changes vis-à-vis what students need to know and/or demonstrate, but the emphasis on safety is increased. • Programs MUST train students in the aspects of modern chemical safety appropriate to their educational and scientific needs. • The promotion of safety awareness and skills MUST begin during the first laboratory experience and be incorporated into each lab experience thereafter. • Students MUST undergo general safety training as well as lab-specific training before beginning undergraduate research. • Approved programs MUST have an active departmental safety committee.

13. 0 How Can Chemistry Programs Impart and Assess These Skills and Abilities? • Incorporate into existing courses throughout the curriculum • Design a culture of safety into all lab courses • Consciously design team projects into courses • Require some use of the literature in early chemistry courses • Design exams that go beyond knowledge to demonstrate integration and utilization of information • Emphasize the absolute importance of ethics • All instructional staff must be role models and exemplify responsible conduct in their teaching, research, and all other professional activities.

14. How Can Chemistry Programs Impart and Assess These Skills and Abilities? • Develop separate “mini” courses • Safety • Writing and/or use of the literature • Ethics • A tailored seminar series • Use advanced courses to assess skills • A senior lab course • Poster session based on a project or a literature topic

15. 0 How Can Chemistry Programs Impart and Assess These Skills and Abilities? Undergraduate research: a unique opportunity to develop and assess student skills • Written and oral reports • Poster presentation • Critical use of the literature • Team skills Capstone experience for certified majors

16. Possible Approach to a Capstone Experience: A Self-Contained Seminar Course* • Advanced literature searching • Scientific ethics, with case studies • Writing a scientific paper • Effective oral scientific presentations • Effective poster presentations • Societal impacts of chemistry • Graduate school considerations • Job searching • Resume preparation • Interviewing skills *Such Courses Are Not Usually Considered as In-Depth by CPT

17. Definition of Undergraduate Research Council on Undergraduate Research An inquiry or investigation conducted by an undergraduate student that makes an original intellectual or creative contribution to the discipline • Original work • Contribution to discipline American Chemical Society 17

18. Undergraduate Research • Undergraduate research can be the most educationally valuable experience for students • Students participating in research have the potential to grow professionally and personally in a manner not possible through traditional classroom and instructional lab experiences. American Chemical Society 18

19. Are these Incorporated into Research? • Experiences in which students apply fundamental principles toward an understanding of chemical systems • Actively engage students • Promote progressive development in students’ responsibility for learning • Promote development of critical thinking • Development of multistep problem solving American Chemical Society 19

20. Skills students must use in undergraduate research • Design and execution of experiments • Analysis of data and scientific arguments • Synthesis and application of concepts from multiple sub-disciplines of chemistry • Application of foundational and advanced concepts to new situations • Communication, both oral and written • Team skills • Use of the literature American Chemical Society 20

21. “Soft” Skills that Undergraduate Research Can Emphasize CPT is considering more emphasis on • Independence and Collaboration • Sustainability and Global responsibility • Team skills and Leadership • Laboratory safety American Chemical Society 21

22. What Do The ACS Guidelines Say About Undergraduate Research? • Undergraduate research can be used • As one of the four in-depth courses • For up to 180 hours of the 400 laboratory hours • CPT is considering more emphasis on Undergraduate research as a CAPSTONE EXPERIENCE American Chemical Society 22

23. Written Reports • An undergraduate research project must culminate in a thorough written report. • It must define the problem, formulate a hypothesis, describe experiments devised and conducted to test the hypothesis, experiments, present and interpret the data, draw conclusion, and provide proper citations. • The written report provides an effective means for integrating undergraduate learning experiences, and allows students to participate directly in the process of science. American Chemical Society 23

24. CPT Expectations • Departments are expected to • Define important student process skills. • Describe activities that will develop these skills. • Evaluate whether (and how well) these skills are being developed, including increasing sophistication as a student progresses through the program. • CPT does not look at individual student outcomes, but rather at how a department imparts and accesses process skills. • See Student Skills Supplements at acs.org/cpt

25. Questions for discussion • Group 1 (Safety): • How would the requirement that approved programs must have an active safety committee affect your program? • How would you define "active safety committee" and what functions would a safety committee perform? • What would you see as the best way to capture in the periodic reports to CPT instruction in safety, assessment of students’ safety awareness, implementation of a culture of safety, and infrastructure leading to good safety practices? • Group 2 (Capstone experience): • - How could you envision your program’s implementation of a requirement of a capstone experience for certified majors affect your program? • What should be the role of capstone experiences, including undergraduate research, in imparting and assessing leadership and other ‘soft’ skills? • What would you see as the best way to capture in the periodic reports to CPT the effectiveness of capstone experiences in imparting and assessing 'soft' skills? • Group 3 (Information resources): • How would you impart and assess chemical literature skills, including information management, to your students? • What do you see as the best way to report these efforts and results in periodic reports to CPT?