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Department of Chemistry February 2023 Newsletter

Editor's Notes

Greetings Chemistry!

Throughout the month of February, the Department of Chemistry has collaborated with the Eberly College of Science to feature stories from our Black students, faculty, and alumni as part of our celebration of Black History Month. We recognize their continuous and important contributions to science!

You can read these featured stories on the Eberly College of Science's Diversity Initiatives Black in STEM website.

This edition of the newsletter includes the Fenton Group Lab Profile, department happenings, a message from the Department Head and the GSA, and Jackie Bortiatynski's Teaching Corner.

If you wish to have a story shared in a future newsletter, please contact me at chemcommunications@psu.edu.

Kathryn Harlow, Communications Coordinator

A Message from the Department Head

Turning off your brain

Dear Chemistry Colleagues,

Some time ago I wrote about having a short memory and how this can benefit golfers who lost a tournament and scientists dealing with rejection. This is one type of turning off your brain. Recently, I was listening to an episode on Alan Alda’s Clear & Vivid Podcast on creativity. It featured neuroscientist Charles Lamb who talked about the importance of turning off your brain to be creative. “The prefrontal cortex needs to be unengaged”, Lamb said. He talked about how jazz musicians, authors, and basketball players have in common learning their fundamentals to the point that they don’t have to think about them. I would put our joyful Pelé into that category as well.

I also buy into turning off your brain from time to time, and I have several tricks. For me, one is to go to loud places where I can’t think. Lately, hockey games have served this role. The sound and sights make me shut off my brain for a few hours. Another is my weekend spinning classes where riding a bike pushes my thoughts aside. Jerry tells us, “Empty your mind. Don’t think.”

A reporter once asked the famous jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins how he could play this very complex line. The reporter described it to Sonny in a very technical way. Rollins said he had no idea himself, and after that encounter, he was never able to play that piece again because he couldn’t turn off his mind.

There are many times when I need to turn off my brain and trust myself; when I teach in front of 350 students. Yes I have to be well prepared, but then I trust that my instincts and training will allow me to continue what I need to do. Another case is submitting a paper. In preparation we work very hard, thinking with our right brain and then our left brain, reading fast and reading slow; eventually we have to turn it off and trust. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate this most of the time, but some of the time, it does seem to facilitate exploring new directions and ideas. The Beatles said it well. “Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. It is not dying.”

In the coming newsletters, I will be writing about how Chemistry is working towards the five points that President Bendapudi has outlined in her vision for the future of Penn State.

Best Wishes,

Phil Bevilacqua

Research Lab Profile

Fenton Group

Department Happenings

Alumni News

Paul Berg, Penn State alumnus and winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry, dies at 96.

Berg's research on genetic sequencing led to the engineering of new therapeutic treatments for diseases and vaccines.

Faculty Awards, Fellowships & Honors

Ed O’Brien named a Kavli Fellow.

Undergraduate Research

Funded by a generous endowment established by Stephen and Patricia Benkovic, the intent of the award is to enrich the undergraduate chemistry experience by providing research opportunities for the next generation of Penn State chemists, and to stimulate a life-long passion for creative exploration.

A Message from the Graduate Student Association (GSA)

On behalf of Vice-President Kara Pytko:

This month the GSA was busy hosting a slew of events; On Valentine's Day, students gathered on the Life Sciences Bridge for coffee, donuts, and sweets. A MRSEC seminar was given by Penn State Career Services’ Angela Ging, who provided a workshop on CV and resume writing. There was an organized industry site tour of the Millipore Sigma manufacturing site in Bellefonte, PA. On top of all that, some of our graduate students ran a booth at the Easterly Parkway Science and Tech Fair where they made alginate snakes and did a color milk experiment!

Penn State chemistry students at the Easterly Parkway Science and Tech Fair

With our upcoming in-person Graduate Chemistry Open House, the GSA encourages graduate students and post-docs to welcome prospective students to Penn State and interact with them as much as possible! We are very excited for another successful recruiting season!

2023 Graduate Chemistry Open House:

Friday, March 3rd - 6-8pm, (in-person) at the Scholar Hotel.

Follow us on Instagram (psuchemgsa), Twitter (@ChemGSA_PSU), Facebook (PSU Chemistry GSA) and LinkedIn (Penn State Chemistry Alumni) for more updates.

GSA Executive Board 2022-2023: Ryan Szukalo, President | Kara Pytko, Vice President | Theresa Buckley, Secretary | Maddy Helm, Treasurer | Mary Kate Caucci, Professional Development Chair | Haley Young, Outreach Chair | Olivia Peduzzi, External Liaison

top (left to right): Haley Young, Theresa Buckley, Maddy Helm, Olivia Peduzzi bottom (left to right): Mary Kate Caucci, Ryan Szukalo, Kara Pytko

Teaching Corner with Jackie

Encouraging Feedback

It is no longer getting dark around 5pm and we are starting to see the hints of spring. To those who teach in the spring semester, that means spring break is on its way. For many years, I have observed mid-semester as the time when the culture of my classroom has taken hold and a rhythm for my pedagogical approaches to support student learning has been established. It is also the time in the semester when my blinders can go up, and I start to develop perceptions of how everything is working for my students. I have learned from experience that my perceptions are not entirely correct.

Teaching is a learning collaboration between instructor and student; just as we would ask our colleagues for feedback on a joint project, we also need to ask our students for feedback on their learning experiences. Many refer to this type of check in as mid-semester feedback. I have included references on mid-semester feedback at the bottom of this piece because there are so many ways to ask the questions and collect the answers needed to help inform our teaching. By collecting feedback at mid-semester, we still have time to make last minute adjustments to support student learning. The common tool used by many instructors to capture mid-semester feedback is an anonymous survey. The problem when seeking student feedback is not the tool, but rather the number of responses.

Many of us use emails and class announcements to encourage our students to provide us with their feedback. I have found this type of encouragement has little effect on the number of students who engage in the process. I am always seeking other ways to improve this type of engagement. Last month, I was reading a teaching blog created by a colleague in Statistics. He shared a link to a short article on micro lectures. I learned that this type of lecture is a short recording of 10 minutes or less that focuses on a key topic and asks students to engage in a specific activity. I started thinking about my problem with encouraging student responses, and I wondered if a micro lecture would be a better tool. It is difficult to carve out 5 to 7 minutes during class to share pertinent information on the feedback we are seeking. We also know that asking students to read a long email never works.

The great thing about a micro lecture is that you can connect on a personal level and deliver targeted information before asking your students to engage in the feedback process. Micro lectures can be recorded in ZOOM with auto captioning, so students have the option to use the text if needed. Subsequently, when the email is sent to students or the announcement is made in class, it can be short because it is accompanied by a recorded personal message for your students. We all need feedback, but the process of capturing it is not always easy. Maybe we need to add a personal touch. If anyone gives this idea a try this semester, please send me an email. I will be piloting this approach in the fall.

I hope everyone has a great spring break, and as always, please feel free to reach out anytime. I'd love to hear your perspective and share ideas.

References:

https://tll.mit.edu/teaching-resources/assess-teaching/mid-semester-formative-feedback/

https://crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/instructor_resources/Collecting_Mid-semester_Student_Feedback.pdf

https://www.colorado.edu/center/teaching-learning/2021/09/28/fostering-equity-taking-temperature-your-classroom

Take care,

Jackie Bortiatynski

Jackie Bortiatynski is a teaching professor for the Department of Chemistry at Penn State. She also serves as Director of the Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE). Visit the CESE website for more information.
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Kathryn Harlow
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