NIU Department of
Chemistry & Biochemistry
Where the study of matter...matters!
(Primary appointment in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Professor and Chair)
Professor
Office: Gabel Hall 159
Phone: (815) 753-0327
pkelter@niu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Georgia, 1981
Ph.D., University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 1980
B.S., City College of the City University of New York, 1976
Chemical education; assessing student learning; assessing teaching ability; international cooperation in chemical education.
ICUC - The International Center for First-Year Undergraduate Chemistry Education
Chemistry: The Practical Science. Kelter, P. B.; Mosher, M.; Scott, A. (2008) Houghton Mifflin Co.
Chemical education and sustainable development: Recommendations of the International ICUC-PIEQ XV Conference. Abraham, J. M.; Castro-Acuña, C. M.; Domínguez-Danache, R.; Pinto, G; Kelter, P. B. (2007) The Chemical Educator, 12: 292-294.
First-Year Undergraduate Chemistry Education International Conference: A report from the inaugural conference. Middlecamp, C.H.; Kelter, P. B. (2006) The Chemical Educator, 11: 49-54.
A first look at the case for undergraduate TAs. Spinka, A.; Kelter, P. B. (2005) The Chemical Educator, 10: 470-472. Also published in Spanish, as "Un primer vistazo al caso de los estudiantes de pregrado como profesores asistentes," in the same journal (2005).
Operation chemistry: Where the clocks run by orange juice and the t-shirts are never bare. Kelter, P. B., Walsh, J. L., McLaughlin, C. W. (2005) NSTA Exemplary Science Monograph: Best Practices in Professional Development, NSTA Press.
Chemistry: A World of Choices (2nd Edition). Kelter, P. B.; Carr, J. D.; Scott, A. (2004) McGraw Hill/W.C. Brown.
The case for an International Center for First-Year Undergraduate Chemistry Education as a means of dealing with a mid-life crisis. Kelter, P. B.; Castro-Acuña, C. M.; Middlecamp, C. (2004) The Chemical Educator, 9: 255-256. Also published in Spanish, as "Como un Centro Internacional para la Enseñanza de la Química en el Primer Año de Educación Superior puede contribuir a superar una crisis como la de los 40 años," in the same journal (2004).
First-year chemistry (Arguably). Middlecamp, C.; Kelter, P. B.; Castro-Acuña, C. M. (2004) The Chemical Educator, 9: 182-183. Also published in Spanish, as “Química de Primer Año (Discutible),” in the same journal (2004).
“Better at math, better at chemistry” is a shibboleth for so many first-year chemistry teachers. Several important studies during the past half-century (and other done since the late 1920’s!) have confirmed that there is a strong relationship between standard measures of math ability and standard measures of chemistry performance. Hovey and Krohn in 1958 (1), Schelar, Cluff and Roth in 1963 (2), and Hovey and Krohn in 1963 (3) demonstrated that standardized mathematics tests, as well as specially-prepared exams, correlated highly with course outcome. Spencer (4) showed in 1996 that even 40 years later, this same trend continued. He went further in his study to differentiate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and major. McFate and Olmsted (5) examined several measures, many of which followed this 50-year-old pattern. More recent work by Mason (6) and Pienta (7) look at this work in a large, Midwestern university, and a large Southwestern university with a large Hispanic population.
Data collected over a 15-year time span by my group for over 16,000 students at three different types of universities (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1991-1998), UNC-Greensboro (1999-2003) and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2001-2006) show that for a wide range of students enrolling in first-year chemistry courses with very different expectations, final course grades correlate reasonably well with incoming national mathematics examination scores (SAT and ACT), and do not correlate as well with other national measures. Individual campus chemistry entrance exams (typified by references 8 and 9) do not yield significantly better predictive power.
Fundamental questions are necessarily raised from these data, key among which are, “Are we testing what we want students to learn?” and “What is it we students them to learn?” These are the types of questions we explore.
We also work on strategies that include cooperative small-group supplemental instruction and working with pre-college teachers, in order to to help those who are less well-prepared to achieve as highly as possible, as well as help students in high school to become better-prepared.