Ryan is currently involved in several different research projects. Most of his work is currently focused on work with SEISMIC, an analysis of chemistry YouTube videos, and the 3DL4US project. I also have several previous research projects including the ChemSims, Texting, STEM retention projects, and BRAID. Success has required relying on many collaborators and quite a few student researchers.
Chemistry on Screen: This is an NSF funded collaborative project with Dr. Debbie Herrington. This project aims to identify ways to improve the quality of chemistry educational videos that students are accessing with increasing frequency on platforms such as YouTube. This individual control of learning allows students to find the right video to meet their needs at any time of day. However, the huge number of videos and greatly varying instructional quality means that students (and instructors!) need help narrowing down this increasingly large volume of content to identify the most effective videos for supporting student learning. The recent shift to remote instruction necessitated by COVID made the quantity of videos even more unmanageable. This project aims to identify elements of instructional videos that are most important for supporting students’ learning of chemistry concepts and evaluate the extent to which the most frequently watched chemistry instructional videos incorporate those elements. The video evaluation framework developed as part of this project will serve as a resource both for evaluating videos and for developing a set of guidelines that can be used for developing high quality videos in the future.
STEM Equity Learning Communities (SELC) – a SEISMIC project: The multi-institutional, interdisciplinary SELC Project is an NSF-funded initiative intended to develop equity-mindedness for participants and position them to promote this mindset in their own departments.
Our long-term goal is to transform introductory STEM courses into equitable learning environments. To do so, it is imperative that faculty, administrators, and undergraduate students recognize the structural role that courses and departments play in student success. Department leaders, as key connectors with both faculty and administrators, are central to this process. The overall objective of this proposal is to establish SELCs in universities across the U.S. that will foster impactful approaches for engaging faculty, department leaders, and undergraduate students in equity-minded discussions of their STEM courses.
3DL4US: This is large collaborative project looking at assessing the use of three-dimensional learning in STEM courses. Want more info? You can check out their much better website at: https://3dl4us.org/ You can also see some of the key papers from this project, including the 3D Learning Assessment Protocol, 3D Learning Observation Protocol, and Beyond Active Learning.
ChemSims: This project is a collaboration with Drs. Debbie Herrington and Jessie VandenPlas from GVSU. [Check out the project webpage.] Many students struggle with chemistry due to the inherent difficulty of visualizing phenomena that they cannot directly see, such as the interactions of atoms and molecules. To help students make connections between this unseen (particulate) level and the macroscopic level that can be directly observed, educators have begun to develop tools such as simulations to model chemical concepts. Simulations allow students to manipulate variables and observe the outcomes of these manipulations on the particle behavior in various chemical systems. Such simulations are increasingly being incorporated into high school and college classrooms as they have been shown to positively impact students’ conceptual understanding of chemistry. However, the research also indicates that left on their own, students may misinterpret certain aspects of a simulation thus developing incorrect ideas. This is a particularly important consideration with the increased popularity of online, blended, and flipped classrooms that can use simulations as a tool to aid in independent student learning. A potential solution it to use screencasts, videos in which an expert initially demonstrates how to use a particular simulation, focusing students in on the key elements and helping them interpret the various aspects of the simulation. This project seeks to compare students’ guided use of simulations with watching an expert led screencast for developing understanding of key chemistry concepts. In both cases, students will work independently at home to complete an assignment. In the simulation case, students will complete a scaffolded assignment that guides them through interaction with the simulation to develop key chemistry concepts. A second group of matched students will complete the same assignment by watching a parallel screencast then using the simulation. Comparing students’ understanding of key chemistry concepts before and after completion of the assignments as well as differences in how students use the simulation vs. the screencast will facilitate identification of best practices in the use of simulations or screencasts outside of the classroom. Moreover, an iterative design process will allow for the development and dissemination of high quality, validated materials (including screencasts and scaffolded assignments) to support the use of a number of popular simulations. We have published a summary from the project, and had topic specific publications on equilibrium, atomic interactions, gas laws, kinetics, and solubility.
Texting: How can we co-opt it for learning? This work with Dr. Debbie Herrington has been focused on helping students more consistently engage in best practices for learning. Check out this work in the Journal of Chemical Education and Canadian Journal of Chemistry.
Student retention in STEM: This project developed out of three NSF S-STEM grants. The primary role of these grants was to support students to achieving a STEM based career, however, it was also required that the students develop a cohort to increase their chance of success. As a result of our creation and implementation of the S-STEM program, we believed that the evaluation data collected could also be used for research purposes. Thus we have attempted to better understand the experiences of the over 90 S-STEM scholars to date. We have identified the strong impact that interactions with practicing scientists have on the students’ ability to visualize themselves as practicing scientists. Their interactions can also help alleviate student concerns and instill confidence by allowing students to embrace their uncertainty about career paths.
Past projects
Ryan has been involved in several past projects. Hopefully there will be longer descriptions available at some point. Several of the main projects include the NSF funded BRAID project (developing interdisciplinary connections in the sciences), exploration of student success (including gender gaps) in STEM courses, and curricular development within the general chemistry curriculum. Check out his publications.
