Lauren Denofrio

Courses

Lauren Denofrio has taught the following courses:

• Chemistry 101
• Chemistry 103
• Chemistry 105
• Chemistry 199K
• Chemistry 199L

Teaching Philosophy

Statement of Philosophy

Each thread of scientific knowledge can be viewed as a synapse between networked ideas, people, and places. Embedded within each thread is a shared language — a way of describing how systems behave and interact. Science teachers help us to decode some of this language, and let us in on a great and beautiful secret. When students struggle in science, it is because this "secret language" remains undecipherable and abstract. The first duty of a chemistry teacher is to illustrate that although chemistry is a human construct with its own language, it is not so foreign as to be without comparison to everyday experience. When students can relate something abstract to something concrete, such as an analogy, a model, or a tactile experience, learning happens. Students can orchestrate such connections between chemistry concepts and everyday experiences and therefore reinforce their own learning. I helped to create the Reaching and Educating America's Chemists of Tomorrow (R.E.A.C.T.) outreach program towards this aim. R.E.A.C.T. requires undergraduate volunteer participants to design hands-on chemistry lessons and implement them in local schools and after-school programs. The purpose of this program is to reinforce chemistry topics by asking college students to draw new analogies and to create new experiments for their audience. Currently, the program involves more than 450 college students and reaches over 3,000 youngsters in our community per semester. Students recall topics from class, apply them in new ways, and illustrate them to a younger audience. I believe that the experience affords undergraduates even one more way to make connections between abstract concepts and everyday life.

My colleague Dr. Yi Lu and I apply this paradigm to one of the newest chemistry courses in our department, Chem 199L: The Chemistry and Biology of Everyday Life (CBEL). The course helps students access and understand the mechanisms of chemical research and the chemical enterprise, beginning with their personal, scientific interests. Students are encouraged to take the course multiple times, thus refining the link between their interests and the scientific enterprise while learning research-related skills over the course of their undergraduate career. Through this course, we:

• teach research-related skills like how to investigate a topic in the literature or how to access experimental design
• link students to meaningful in undergraduate research opportunities and experiences
• engage students in mentoring, team activities and self-assessment.

My main objectives for chemical education practice and research include:

1. augmenting current programs of study in chemistry by understanding how and why laboratory experimentation, service learning, and undergraduate research help students learn chemistry,
2. assessing the efficacy and validity of current programs in chemistry that feature laboratory experimentation, service learning and undergraduate research, and
3. both rationalizing and quantifying the impact of these experiential activities on student learning in chemistry.

Awards