The development of student skills
and the role of research in the
undergraduate curriculum:
Implications for the ACS Guidelines
Joel Shulman
University of Cincinnati
Edgar Arriaga
University of Minnesota
The evolution of the ACS approval process:
Moving beyond the 2008 Guidelines
ACS Committee on Professional Training
April 8, 2013
What Do We Mean By
“Student Skills?”
Can be termed:
 Process skills
 Soft skills
 Employability skills
 Nontechnical professional competencies
Characteristics:
 Generic and transferable
 Marketable and lifelong
 Wide applications that go beyond course
content alone
2
Examples of Student Skills
and Abilities
 Problem solving/Critical thinking
 Laboratory safety
 Chemical-literature skills
 Communication, both oral and written
 Team skills/Leadership
 Professional ethics and social responsibility
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What Do The ACS Guidelines Say?
 “Students should go beyond course content alone to be
effective and productive scientists. They need to master a
variety of skills that will allow them to become successful
professionals.”
 “Both dedicated courses and integration of learning
opportunities throughout the curriculum can be used to
develop student skills and provide a means for assessing
them.”
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Laboratory Safety Skills: A Lifelong Impact
HAZARDS occur daily!
Laboratory Safety Teaches Students about:
- Minimizing hazard risks and what to do
when they occur
- How to Use prudent practices and
protective equipment
Ultimately, Lab Safety Skills teach students to:
 Create a safer/healthier environment for all
 Live safer, healthier, longer lives
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Library & Information
Literacy
“Set of abilities requiring individuals to
recognize when information is needed,
and have the ability to locate,
evaluate, and use effectively the
needed information.”
American Library Association (ALA)
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Team Building
 “The ability to work in multidisciplinary teams is
essential for a well-educated scientist.”
 Enhances student learning
 Is social, less competitive—not a solo race
 Allows for sharing of ideas; increases listening, learning, and
communication skills
 Develops cooperation and reciprocity
 Uses active/interactive learning techniques
 Stimulates interpersonal collaboration
 Develops people skills, including leadership
 Industry uses the team approach to solve problems.
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Leadership
 Envision
 Engage
 Energize
 Enable
 Execute
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Changes being considered
vis-à-vis student skills






Increased focus on student skills
Introduction of a new skill on data and
information management
Strengthened statements on safety and
promotion of safety awareness
Development of leadership skills through
teamwork
Demonstration of continuous growth in a
student's skills throughout the program
Requiring a “capstone experience” for certified
majors as a mechanism for imparting and
evaluating these skills
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Proposed changes to Guidelines
CHEMICAL-LITERATURE SKILLS

Students MUST




be able to carry out searches by keywords, authors, abstracts,
citations, patents, structures/substructures, and registry
numbers.
have ready access to databases that allow them to complete
these searches (but not necessarily Chemical Abstracts).
be able to read, analyze, interpret, and cite the chemical
literature as applied to answering a chemical question.
be instructed in data management, archiving,record keeping,
and managing citations.
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What do students need to demonstrate currently?
LABORATORY SAFETY
 “Students [should] understand the concepts of
safe laboratory practices and how to apply them.”
 Begin safety awareness in the first lab course
 Understand responsible disposal techniques
 Comply with safety regulations
 Understand and use MSDS
 Recognize and minimize potential chemical
and physical hazards in the laboratory
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Proposed changes to the Guidelines
LABORATORY SAFETY
 Nothing changes vis-à-vis what students need to know
and/or demonstrate, but the emphasis on safety is
increased.
– Programs MUST train students in the aspects of modern chemical
safety appropriate to their educational and scientific needs.
– The promotion of safety awareness and skills MUST begin during
the first laboratory experience and be incorporated into each lab
experience thereafter.
– Students MUST undergo general safety training as well as labspecific training before beginning undergraduate research.
– Approved programs MUST have an active departmental safety
committee.
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How Can Chemistry Programs Impart and
Assess These Skills and Abilities?
 Incorporate into existing courses throughout the
curriculum
 Design a culture of safety into all lab courses
 Consciously design team projects into courses
 Require some use of the literature in early chemistry
courses
 Design exams that go beyond knowledge to demonstrate
integration and utilization of information
 Emphasize the absolute importance of ethics
 All instructional staff must be role models and exemplify
responsible conduct in their teaching, research, and all
other professional activities.
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How Can Chemistry Programs Impart and
Assess These Skills and Abilities?
 Develop separate “mini” courses




Safety
Writing and/or use of the literature
Ethics
A tailored seminar series
 Use advanced courses to assess skills
 A senior lab course
 Poster session based on a project or a literature topic
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How Can Chemistry Programs Impart and
Assess These Skills and Abilities?
Undergraduate research: a unique opportunity to
develop and assess student skills
− Written and oral reports
− Poster presentation
− Critical use of the literature
− Team skills
Capstone experience for certified majors
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Possible Approach to a Capstone
Experience: A Self-Contained
Seminar Course*
 Advanced literature searching
 Scientific ethics, with case studies
 Writing a scientific paper
 Effective oral scientific presentations
 Effective poster presentations
 Societal impacts of chemistry
 Graduate school considerations
 Job searching
 Resume preparation
 Interviewing skills
*Such Courses Are Not Usually Considered as In-Depth by CPT
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Definition of Undergraduate Research
Council on Undergraduate Research
An inquiry or investigation conducted by
an undergraduate student that makes an
original intellectual or creative contribution
to the discipline
− Original work
− Contribution to discipline
American Chemical Society
17
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Undergraduate Research
− Undergraduate research can be the most educationally
valuable experience for students
− Students participating in research have the potential to
grow professionally and personally in a manner not
possible through traditional classroom and instructional
lab experiences.
American Chemical Society
18
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Are these Incorporated into Research?
− Experiences in which students apply fundamental
principles toward an understanding of chemical systems
− Actively engage students
− Promote progressive development in students’
responsibility for learning
− Promote development of critical thinking
− Development of multistep problem solving
American Chemical Society
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Skills students must use in
undergraduate research
− Design and execution of experiments
− Analysis of data and scientific arguments
− Synthesis and application of concepts from multiple subdisciplines of chemistry
− Application of foundational and advanced concepts to
new situations
− Communication, both oral and written
− Team skills
− Use of the literature
American Chemical Society
20
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“Soft” Skills that Undergraduate
Research Can Emphasize
CPT is considering more emphasis on
– Independence and Collaboration
– Sustainability and Global responsibility
– Team skills and Leadership
– Laboratory safety
American Chemical Society
21
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What Do The ACS Guidelines Say About
Undergraduate Research?
•Undergraduate research can be used
– As one of the four in-depth courses
– For up to 180 hours of the 400 laboratory
hours
•CPT is considering more emphasis on
Undergraduate research as a CAPSTONE
EXPERIENCE
American Chemical Society
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Written Reports
- An undergraduate research project must culminate in a
thorough written report.
- It must define the problem, formulate a hypothesis,
describe experiments devised and conducted to test the
hypothesis, experiments, present and interpret the data,
draw conclusion, and provide proper citations.
- The written report provides an effective means for
integrating undergraduate learning experiences, and allows
students to participate directly in the process of science.
American Chemical Society
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CPT Expectations
 Departments are expected to
 Define important student process skills.
 Describe activities that will develop these skills.
 Evaluate whether (and how well) these skills are
being developed, including increasing sophistication
as a student progresses through the program.
 CPT does not look at individual student outcomes,
but rather at how a department imparts and
accesses process skills.
 See Student Skills Supplements at acs.org/cpt
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Questions for discussion
•
•
•
Group 1 (Safety):
•
How would the requirement that approved programs must have an active safety committee affect your
program?
•
How would you define "active safety committee" and what functions would a safety committee perform?
•
What would you see as the best way to capture in the periodic reports to CPT instruction in safety,
assessment of students’ safety awareness, implementation of a culture of safety, and infrastructure
leading to good safety practices?
Group 2 (Capstone experience):
•
- How could you envision your program’s implementation of a requirement of a capstone experience for
certified majors affect your program?
•
What should be the role of capstone experiences, including undergraduate research, in imparting and
assessing leadership and other ‘soft’ skills?
•
What would you see as the best way to capture in the periodic reports to CPT the effectiveness of
capstone experiences in imparting and assessing 'soft' skills?
Group 3 (Information resources):
•
How would you impart and assess chemical literature skills, including information management, to your
students?
•
What do you see as the best way to report these efforts and results in periodic reports to CPT?