B.A., Hendrix College (1992) M.S., University of Oklahoma (1995) Ph.D, University of Oklahoma (1998) Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemistry Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, (1998-1999)

Physical Chemistry/Chemical Education

I am interested in issues related to how students learn chemistry and how that guides the design of instructional materials and teaching strategies. Much of my research focuses on the impact of teaching strategies on student learning and attitudes. Analytical Chemistry POGIL Project The intent of this project is to develop a set of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) materials that will impart widely accepted analytical chemistry principles while engaging students as active learners, facilitating their development in the process skills that are key to analytical chemists in particular and valuable to scientists in general. This project was initially supported by a POGIL SPUR grant and has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF-DUE#0717492). Juliette Lantz is my collaborator on this grant. She is directing the development of the activities, and I am directing the assessment of the project and conducting research into student learning and development of process skills. One focus of this research is to examine student learning gains and attitudes at approximately fourteen institutions to assess the impact of the POGIL materials. Student learning gains will be measured using several strategies. American Chemical Society (ACS) exams for analytical chemistry and instrumental analysis will be administered in the appropriate courses. Exam questions written and agreed upon by participating faculty members will be embedded in course exams. Student attitudes and perceptions will be measured using the Self-Assessment of Learning Gains and the ChemX survey. Student process skills will be measured through classroom observations and interviews. Results from these assessments will be analyzed separately and also aggregated to assess the effect of the POGIL activities on student learning and attitudes. A secondary focus of the research is to examine the impact of the project on the professional development of the participating faculty members. Faculty participating in the project will administer assessment instruments and keep a reflective journal of their own course observations. Faculty will also provide assessment of the workshops and consortium model. In addition to the project assessment components, there is a more fundamental question of how students develop the information processing and problem solving skills that are critical to analytical chemistry. The theoretical framework for this work is self-regulated learning. While there are different models of self-regulated learning, they all have commonalities that include the purposeful use of specific processes, strategies, or responses by students to improve their academic achievement. This framework is consistent with the process-oriented guided-inquiry learning philosophy and will inform the classroom observations and student interviews. The results of this work will inform faculty ideal implementations of POGIL materials and guide the development of assessment strategies for instructors to use to measure gains in process skill development. Physical Chemistry Physical chemistry is an area of chemistry that is math intensive and heavily focused on the representational level of chemistry. This is particularly true in quantum mechanics, where concrete physical models are limited. Students often have incomplete or differing understandings of concepts and terms. There has been work done by Chris Rasmussen in differential equations to study social interactions leading to the establishment of meaning, development of argument norms, and connections of formal mathematical developments to students' personal experience. The Toulmin method was used to analyze the transcripts of student interactions and provide evidence of when meanings of terms and concepts had been negotiated and accepted by the group. In order to capture student thinking and interactions, it requires the use of pedagogical content tools that allows the observer to connect to student thinking while still delivering content. POGIL activities provide a natural pedagogical content tool to observe student interactions and meaning making. This project is being done in collaboration with Marcy Towns (Purdue University) and Chris Rasmussen (San Diego State University) and will involve taping groups as they complete POGIL activities and analyzing the interactions using the Toulmin method. It was funded by the National Science Foundation CCLI DUE program (NSF-DUE#0816792). Increasing the Impact of STEM Education Projects through Effective Propagation Strategies The purpose of this TUES Central Resource Project is to help educational researchers and curriculum developers increase the impact of their projects through increased focus on project design and strategies to facilitate wider adoption/adaptation of new learning materials and teaching strategies. In the past decades, substantial work has taken place within the TUES program (and its predecessors) to develop and test new curriculum materials and instructional strategies based on current scientific understanding of how people learn. These materials and strategies have translated research about effective teaching and learning at the undergraduate level into resources STEM faculty members can apply in their courses. Awareness of these strategies and materials has increased. However, there is a growing consensus that a currently unsolved problem is how to get this understanding about effective teaching and learning enacted in the teaching practices of typical college STEM faculty. This project will work to improve propagation strategies within the STEM education community through four core activities: Collect propagation strategies used by current and former TUES/CCLI projects to promote adaptation and implementation of innovative developments in STEM education. Analyze and categorize strategies and success of projects in terms of empirical evidence and factors identified by theories of change. Promote discussion about and awareness of the importance of deliberately designing propagation strategies and explicitly using appropriate strategies in project planning. Develop accessible resources about a range of possible propagation strategies as well as how to identify and optimize strategies to enhance impact. This project is being done in collaboration with Charles Henderson (Western Michigan University) and Jeff Froyd (Texas A&M University). It was funded by the National Science Foundation TUES program (NSF-DUE#1236926).

Nicole Becker, Chris Rasmussen, George Sweeney, Megan Wawro, Marcy Towns, and Renee Cole, "Explanations grounded in the particulate nature of matter: A sociochemical norm in a physical chemistry class," Chemical Education Research and Practice, 14, 81-94 (2013). Raina Khatri, Charles Henderson, Renee Cole, and Jeff Froyd. "Principal Investigator and Program Director Views of Successful Propagation," Proceedings of the 2012 Physics Education Research Conference. AIP Conference Proceedings Volume 1513, p. 218-221. Chris Bauer and Renee Cole, "Validation of Assessment Rubric via Controlled Modification of Classroom Activity," Journal of Chemical Education, 89(9), 1104-1108 (2012). Renee Cole, Nicole Becker, Marcy Towns, George Sweeney, Megan Wawro, and Chris Rasmussen, "Adapting a Methodology from Mathematics Education Research to Chemistry Education Research: Documenting Collective Activity", International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 10, 193-211 (2012). Kimberly Linenberger†, Renee S. Cole, and Somnath Sarkar, "Looking Beyond Lewis Structures: A General Chemistry Molecular Modeling Experiment Focusing on Physical Properties and Geometry," Journal of Chemical Education, 88(7), 962-965 (2011). Philip R. Burkholder, Renee S. Cole, and Gordon H. Purser, "Using Molecular Dynamics Simulation to Reinforce Student Understanding of Intermolecular Forces," Journal of Chemical Education, 85(8), 1071-1077 (2008). Note: This article was selected as the cover feature. Christopher F. Bauer, John V. Clevenger, Renée S. Cole, Loretta L. Jones, Paul B. Kelter, Maria T. Oliver-Hoyo, and Barbara A. Sawrey, "Hiring and Promotion in Chemical Education: A Task Force Report," Journal of Chemical Education, 85(7), 898-901 (2008). (Invited) Scott E. McKay, Timothy Robbins†, and Renée S. Cole, "Modern Sport and Chemistry: What a Golf Fanatic Should Know," Journal of Chemical Education, 85(10), 1319 (2008). (Invited) Renée S. Cole and John B. Todd, "Effects of web-based multimedia homework with immediate rich feedback on student learning in general chemistry" Journal of Chemical Education, 80(11), 1338-1343 (2003). Renée S. Cole and Roger Frech, "Characterization of the sodium sulfate-sodium phosphate system" Journal of Molecular Structure, 643, 101-107 (2002). Guinevere A. Giffin†, Steven R. Boone, Renée S. Cole, Scott E. McKay and Robert Kopitzke, "Modern Sport and Chemistry: What a chemically aware sports fanatic should know" Journal of Chemical Education 79(7), 813-819 (2002). Note: This article was selected as the cover feature. Renée Cole, "Chemistry, Teaching, and WebCT" Journal of Chemical Education 77(7), 826-827 (2000). (Invited) R. S. Cole and Roger Frech, "Spectroscopic characterization of pure and cation-stabilized sodium phosphate" Journal of Chemical Physics 112(9), 4251-4261 (2000). Lowell R. Matthews, Edward T. Knobbe, Gamini Dharmasena, Renée S. Cole and Roger E. Frech, "Spectrofluorimetric characterization of an ionic conductor: Sodium sulfate high-temperature phases doped with europium(III)," Materials Research Symposium Proceedings, 369, 475-480 (1995). Roger E. Frech, Renee S. Cole and Gamini Dharmasena, "Raman spectroscopic studies of Y2(SO4)3 substitution in LiNaSO4 and LiKSO4," J. Solid State Chem., 105, 151-160 (1993). David P. Smith, Jamie R. Strickler, Steven D. Gray, Michael A. Bruck, Renee S. Holmes and David E. Wigley, "Early-transition-metal-mediated [2+2+2] cycloadditions: formation and fragmentation of a reactive metallocyclopentadiene and its direct conversion to h6-arene and h2-pyridene complexes of tantalum," Organometallics, 11, 1275-1288 (1992). Books Refereed Book Chapters Renee Cole, "Using chemistry education research to inform teaching strategies and design of instructional materials," in Chemistry Education: Best Practices, Opportunities, and Trends, Editors: Javier Garcia-Martinez and Elena Serrano-Torregrosa, Wiley-VCH (in press). [invited contribution] Renee Cole, Nicole Becker, and Courtney Stanford, "Discourse analysis as a tool to examine teaching and learning in the classroom," in Tools of Chemistry Education Research (ACS Symposium Series), Editors: Diane Bunce and Renee Cole, Oxford University Press. Renee Cole, "Representing Chemical Equations and Stoichiometry," in AP Chemistry: Implementing Guided Inquiry Activities in the AP Chemistry Classroom, Editors: Thomas Greenbowe and Marian DeWane, The College Board; New York, NY, 2013, pp. 9-16, 39-44. Renee S. Cole and Christopher F. Bauer, "Assessing Your Implementation of POGIL," in Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning (ACS Symposium Series), Editor: Richard Moog, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp 213-225.