The POGIL Podcast

For our fourth episode this season, we will focus on the second of five strategic goals in The POGIL Project’s Strategic Plan, which deals with the creation of High-Quality POGIL Activities.

Today, Co-host Wayne Pearson (who is a retired chemistry professor from the U.S. Naval Academy) will interview three panelists who work closely with both The Project’s endorsement process and its POGIL Activity Clearinghouse.

Caryl Fish, Professor and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Science department at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA; Shawn Simonson, Professor and Director of the Human Performance Laboratory in the Department of Kinesiology at Boise State University and editor of the book POGIL: An Introduction to Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning for Those Who Wish to Empower Learners and Melissa Reeves, an associate professor of chemistry at Tuskegee University where she specializes in physical chemistry and computational chemistry. Enjoy the conversation!

For our third episode this season, we will focus on the first of five strategic goals in The POGIL Project’s Strategic Plan, which is to Grow and Support POGIL Practitioners: We will talk about some of the recent initiatives that have helped us pursue this goal, including the National Conference to Advance POGIL Practice, the Networks Working Group, and the upcoming Climate Justice Symposium. A fundamental aspect of teaching in a POGIL classroom is building personal relationships— student to student and student to teacher. It is no surprise that Goal One of the Strategic Plan encourages us to reach out and build personal relationships that are so important in any organization. We have some folks with us today who have been instrumental in that outreach.

Today, co-host Wayne Pearson (who is a retired chemistry professor from the U.S. Naval Academy) interviews our three panelists-Tim Herzog, Professor of Chemistry

Chair of Faculty Senate at Weber State University, Gail Webster, formerly a professor of Chemistry at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC and now American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Policy and Technology Fellow in Washington DC; and Kristin Plessel, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Enjoy the conversation!

For our second episode this season, we will focus on POGIL’s National Meeting and What We Do. We’ll be answering several questions, including: How does this meeting help The Project move its strategic plan forward?, as well as how do the working groups associated with the strategic plan make that happen.

Co-host Alex Grushow (who is a Professor of Chemistry at Rider University and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry) interviews Marty Perry, Vice Chair for Professional Education in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences ; Suzanne Ruder, Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond; and Chris Bauer, Professor of Chemistry at the University of New Hampshire’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Enjoy the conversation!

During Season 2, we will feature a total of nine episodes focusing on The Project’s strategic plan.

In our first episode, we focus on the historical context of POGIL’s strategic plan - Specifically, How did The Project create its plan and why is it so important?

Co-host Alex Grushow (who is a Professor of Chemistry at Rider University and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry) interviews Richard S. Moog, Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA and the Executive Director of The POGIL Project as well as Susan Shadle, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies & Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Founder of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Boise State University in Idaho. Enjoy the conversation!

Please Note: A resource titled Collaborative Strategic Planning in Higher Education by Patrick Sanaghan was mentioned by Dr. Shadle and includes activities/exercises that are laid out with instructions, materials, and diagrams for chairs. To access this resource, go to the above link.

Shannon Wachowski is currently the Science Consultant for the Wyoming Department of Education (as of June 2020!). In her 14-year career as an educator, Shannon has taught a variety of science and math classes in rural high school settings as well as facilitated professional development for teachers, from pre-service to veteran, through her work with The POGIL Project, PEER Physics, and the University of Wyoming. Originally a chemical engineer, Shannon left industry to pursue a career of life-long learning and helping others learn. In her spare time, Shannon enjoys climbing, running, pottery, quilting, and spending time with her dog, Shasta and husband, Neil.

Melissa S. Reeves received her B.S. in chemistry at University of Florida and her Ph.D. in chemistry at Indiana University at Bloomington. She is an associate professor of chemistry at Tuskegee University where she specializes in physical chemistry and computational chemistry. Her research interests have ranged from calculating transition states of small molecule reactions in solution to molecular dynamics of polymers. She was part of the Physical Chemistry Online (PCOL) group in the early 2000s, has worked on two American Chemical Society Physical Chemistry Exam Committees, and works as part of the Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning Physical Chemistry Laboratory (POGIL-PCL) community.

Patrick Brown is from Clinton, TN a small community in the Appalachian foothills. He received his B.S. in Biology from UT-Chattanooga and his Ph.D. in Cellular Biology from the University of Georgia. After nearly 5 years as a research scientist with the Belle Baruch Marine Institute of the University of South Carolina, he became an Assistant Professor of Biology at King College (now University) in Bristol, TN. It was while at King that he first became exposed to POGIL through one of The Project’s 3-day workshops. He joined the faculty of the Department of Health Sciences at East Tennessee State University in 2011 where he is now an Associate Professor and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Teaching Excellence. He has written journal articles and book chapters about POGIL and is the author of Anatomy and Physiology: A Guided Inquiry.

Brian received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Indiana University. After postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he was a faculty member at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C. for five years before coming to Linfield College in 2001. He’s taught many different chemistry courses, including General Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, and the Art and Science of Brewing. His research interests are centered on developing nanoparticle based sensors and drug delivery mechanisms, and testing them using lasers. He enjoys playing volleyball, cycling, hanging out with his two Golden Retrievers (Kingsley and Tonks), and brewing beer.

Dalia has been teaching English in Chicago, IL, for the last twelve years after concluding that a career in Human Resources Management could not offer either intrinsic satisfaction or intellectual challenges. In 2008, while pursuing her teacher certification, she began teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and college readiness skills at a local community college. Upon completing the teacher certification with endorsements in English and ESL, she transitioned into teaching English language and literature at a public high school, focusing primarily on AP Literature.

She first joined the POGIL community in 2012, and she now writes and utilizes her own POGIL activities in order to teach poetry, reading and literary analysis of poetry, as well as grammar. Dalia holds a M.A. in Medieval English Literature (Michigan State University) and a B.A. in English Literature and Judaic Studies (University of Michigan).

Mark McDaniel is a Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and the Director of the Center for Integrative Research in Cognition, Learning, and Education (CIRCLE). He received his Ph.D. from University of Colorado in 1980. His research is in the general area of human learning and memory, with an emphasis on prospective memory, encoding and retrieval processes in episodic memory and applications to educational contexts. His research has been sponsored by the Institute of Educational Sciences, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and NASA.

McDaniel has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. He has written numerous scholarly articles and is a co-author with Peter Brown and Henry Roediger of the recent book: Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Harvard University Press, 2014).