UWRF Assistant Professor Secures National Science Foundation Grant

May 21, 2012--Jamie Schneider, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, was recently awarded a $149,063 grant through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science (TUES) program.  The grant will support a research project, "Collaborative Research: Immediate Feedback Assessment in Chemistry Courses," that aims to gather evidence about the effects of incorporating methods of feedback into multiple-choice exams in general and organic chemistry.

Schneider serves as lead-principal investigator for the project. Co-investigators on the project include Arunendu Chatterjee, assistant professor of mathematics at UW-River Falls and Kristen L. Murphy, assistant professor of chemical education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The collaborative grant also awarded $50,849 to Sara Hein, professor of chemistry at Winona State University.

"With support from this grant, the use of corrective and non-corrective feedback during testing will be explored at five institutions from large and diverse populations throughout the Midwest," says Schneider. "New directions disclosed by the results of this research in lower-level undergraduate chemistry courses will provide a critically needed catalyst for reformed classroom learning that can be applied to all Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) testing environments. Furthermore, STEM instructors will be able use this project's results to make informed decisions about testing and formative assessment formats for their own classes."

The NSF TUES program seeks to improve the quality of STEM education for all undergraduate students. The program supports efforts to create, adapt, and disseminate new learning materials and teaching strategies to reflect advances both in STEM disciplines and in what is known about teaching and learning. It funds projects that develop faculty expertise, implement educational innovations, assess learning and evaluate innovations, prepare K-12 teachers, or conduct research on STEM teaching and learning.

For more information, contact Schneider at 715-425-3339 or jamie.schneider@uwrf.edu.