September 3, 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Underwood for being awarded the 2021 Faculty Award for Excellence in Gateway Teaching.
September 1, 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Zahilyn Roche Allred for being selected for the CASE Distinguished Post-Doc position for 2021-2022.
August 2021
The Underwood Research Group welcomes Kodi Nix and Heike Stocklein as new ChemEd graduate students.
May 2021
The Underwood Research Group would like to welcome two new undergraduate students: Elaine Arias and Patricia Alvarez.
April 25, 2021
Congratulations to graduate student Alexandria Roach for passing her Original Proposal defense. Next stop – candidacy.
April 1, 2021
Graduate student Brianna Martinez published her first first-author paper at FIU “Creating and testing an activity with interdisciplinary connections: entropy to osmosis”
April 2021
Congratulations to graduate students Brianna and Alexandria and post-doctoral researcher Zahy for presenting talks at their first virtual national ACS conference.
Brianna’s talk was titled “Developing and Evaluating an Interdisciplinary Activity: Making Connections Between Entropy and Osmosis”.
Alexandria’s talk was title “Investigating undergraduate students’ understanding of chemistry core ideas”.
Zahy’s talk was titled “Lessons Learned from the Development, Administration, and Evaluation of Cross-Disciplinary Activities for Chemistry and Biology Students”.
March 2021
Congratulations to graduate student Alexandria Roach for receiving the NSF GRFP award! We are so proud of you.
January 2021
The Underwood Research Group would like to welcome two new undergraduate students: Kathryn Ramjattan and Alanys Pliopa.
November 25, 2020
Dr. Underwood, Dr. Alex Kararo, and Gabriela Gadia published “Investigating the impact of three-dimensional learning interventions on student understanding of structure–property relationships” in Chemistry Education Research and Practice.
September 9, 2020
Dr. Zahilyn Roche Allred, Dr. Alex Kararo, Anthony Farias, and Dr. Underwood published “Students’ use of chemistry core ideas to explain the structure and stability of DNA” in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education.
August 2020
The Underwood Research Group welcomes Brianna Martinez as a new ChemEd graduate student.
The Underwood Research Group welcomes Brittany Adams and Andrea Echarri-Gonzalez as two new undergraduate students to the Underwood Research Group.
June 16, 2020
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Characterizing college science instruction: The Three-Dimensional Learning Observation Protocol” in PLoS ONE.
December 7, 2019
The Underwood and Carmel Research Groups had a great time at the Holiday Party!
August 2019
The Underwood Research Group welcomes Alexandria Roach as a new ChemEd graduate student.
June 16-20, 2019
The Underwood and Carmel Research Groups presented posters at the Gordon Research Conference-Chemistry Education Research and Practice.
Congratulations to Dr. Underwood for being invited to give a talk at the GRC-CERP.
June 1, 2019
Welcome Lorenzo Pla Serrano, Michael Acosta, and Jeffrey Gonzalez as three new undergraduate students to the Underwood Research Group!
May 11, 2019
The Underwood and Carmel Research Groups had a great time at the End of Semester BBQ!
May 1, 2019
The Underwood research group welcomes Dr. Zahilyn Roche Allred to the group as a new post-doctoral researcher working on the project of investigating student connections between chemistry and biology. Dr. Allred recently graduated from Miami University in May 2019 with a PhD in Chemistry Education under the advisement of Dr. Stacey Lowery-Bretz.
April 30, 2019
Congratulations to Brittney Pardinas on being an Honors College Graduate with her BS in Biological Sciences. She was awarded a scholarship to attend FIU’s Medical School beginning Fall 2019.
Also congratulations to LAs: Ghardie Mathelier and Daniel Colado
April 16, 2019
Congratulations to Dr. Underwood for receiving FIU Top Scholar award for Junior Faculty Scholar for Research and Creative Activities in the category of Junior Faculty with Significant Grants (Sciences).
March 31-April 4, 2019
Members of Dr. Underwood’s group and Dr. Carmel’s group attended ACS National Meeting in Orlando, FL.
Congratulations to Laura, Brittney and Anthony for presenting posters for the first time at the national ACS conference.
Laura presented a poster titled “Investigating students’ perceptions of their general chemistry and introductory biology courses”.
Brittney presented a poster titled “Developing assessments that integrate students’ chemistry and biology knowledge”.
Anthony presented a poster titled “Integrating chemistry and biology: Student application of intermolecular forces in denaturation of DNA”.
Dr. Underwood presented a talk titled “Investigating the impact of three-dimensional learning on student understanding”.
Dr. Kararo presented a talk titled “Challenges and lessons learned during the initial propagation of a curriculum”.
January 1, 2019
The Underwood research group welcomes Amy Volero to the group as a new undergraduate researcher working on the project of investigating what changes faculty make to a curriculum when adopting a curriculum.
December 27, 2018
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Reasoning about Reactions in Organic Chemistry: Starting It in General Chemistry” in Journal of Chemical Education.
December 2018
Congratulations to Daniel Pardon on completing his B.S. degree in Chemistry from FIU and being recognized as a Worlds Ahead Graduate
November 28, 2018
Dr. Underwood, Dr. Kararo, and colleagues published “Making predictions and constructing explanations: An investigation into introductory chemistry students’ understanding of structure-property relationships” in Chemistry Education Research and Practice.
October 24, 2018
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Evaluating the extent of a large-scale transformation in gateway science courses” in Science Advances.
September 5, 2018
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Developing an Analytical Framework to Characterize Student Reasoning about Complex Processes” in CBE – Life Sciences Education.
July 29-August 2, 2018
Dr. Carmel’s group and Dr. Underwood’s group attended the 25th Biennial Conference on Chemistry Education (BCCE) at the University of Notre Dame.
Congratulations to Laura and Brittney for giving their first talks at a national conference.
Laura presented a talk titled “Investigating students’ views of the big ideas for their general chemistry and introductory biology courses”.
Brittney presented a talk titled “Creating assessments to investigate student understanding of core chemistry ideas in introductory biology”.
Dr. Underwood led two workshops on the development of assessments that measure three-dimensional learning. The first workshop focused on the use of core ideas and the second workshop focused on scientific practices.
Dr. Underwood and Dr. Kararo led a workshop titled “An Alternative general chemistry curriculum – Chemistry, Life, the Universe, & Everything (CLUE)”.
July 12, 2018
Dr. Underwood attended the 25th IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education in Sydney, Australia to present “Use of evidence to inform instructional transformation: An investigation into student understanding of structure-property relationships”.
May 22, 2018
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Connecting Structure–Property and Structure–Function Relationships across the Disciplines of Chemistry and Biology: Exploring Student Perceptions” in CBE – Life Sciences Education.
May 1, 2018
The Underwood research group welcomes Anthony Farias and Chavelys Hernandez to the group as new undergraduate researchers working on the project of investigating how students connect their chemistry and biology knowledge.
April 28, 2018
Congratulations Abby on graduating from FIU with a B.S. in chemistry!
April 6, 2018
Dr. Underwood, Dr. Kararo, Laura, and Brittney presented a poster titled “Development of assessments for student understanding of core ideas in introductory biology” at the 2nd Annual Faculty Innovations for Student Success Showcase at FIU.
March 17-22, 2018
Dr. Underwood, Dr. Kararo, and Abby attended the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Underwood presented a talk titled “Investigating the impact of an alternative general chemistry curriculum among diverse classroom environments”.
Dr. Kararo presented a talk titled “Investigating the impact of using transformed curriculum materials on structure-property relationships in a traditional general chemistry course”. She also presented two posters: “Development of assessments for student understanding of core ideas in introductory biology” and “Improving student understanding of intermolecular forces with transformed curricula materials”.
Abby presented a poster titled “Investigating how undergraduate general chemistry students interpret and explain everyday phenomena”.
March 8, 2018
Congratulations Dr. Kararo who received the Spring 2018 CIBA Young Scientist Travel Award to support her trip to the ACS national meeting to present research.
March 1, 2018
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Energy connections and misconnections across chemistry and biology” in CBE-Life Sciences Education.
February 26, 2018
Dr. Underwood is presenting a talk titled “Using student understanding of structure-property relationships as evidence to drive instructional changes within the general chemistry curriculum” at Emory University.
February 23, 2018
Dr. Underwood is presenting a three-dimensional learning assessment protocol workshop at Emory University.
February 9, 2018
Congratulations Dr. Underwood and colleagues whose publication “Adapting assessment tasks to support three-dimensional learning” was selected as Editor’s Choice in Science Magazine.
January 30, 2018
The Underwood research group welcomes Laura Santiago to the group as a new undergraduate researcher working on the project of investigating how students connect their chemistry and biology knowledge.
January 19-21, 2018
Dr. Kararo attended the ACS Leadership Development Workshop in Dallas, Texas through the Younger Chemist Leadership Development Award she received.
January 15, 2018
The Underwood research group welcomes Daniel Padron to the group as a new undergraduate researcher working on the project of investigating the use of 3D-LAP questions on assessments.
December 18, 2017
Congratulations to Mashood for accepting a faculty member position at the Homi Bhadha Centre for Science Education at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India.
December 13, 2017
The Underwood research group welcomes Brittney Pardinas to the group as a new undergraduate researcher working on the project of investigating how students connect their chemistry and biology knowledge.
December 12, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Underwood and colleagues on having “Adapting assessment tasks to support three-dimensional learning” published and be chosen at Editor’s Choice in the Journal of Chemical Education.
December 9, 2017
The Underwood group and Dr. Justin Carmel had a wonderful First Annual Chemistry Education Holiday Party.
November 8, 2017
Dr. Underwood presented Dr. Kararo’s and Gabi’s new research findings at SERMACS regional ACS meeting titled “A tale of using evidence to inform instructional transformation: An investigation into student understanding of structure-property relationships”.
November 3, 2017
Dr. Underwood gave a great talk to the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at University of North Carolina Wilmington titled “Using student understanding of structure-property relationships as evidence to drive instructional changes”.
August 21, 2017
Happy first day of classes for the Fall 2017 semester!
What did your viewing of the eclipse look like today?
August 1, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Sonia Underwood for being awarded a collaborative $300,000 NSF grant to begin working on a project with Michigan State University to develop three-dimensional learning (core ideas, scientific practices, and crosscutting concepts) introductory biology assessment questions focused on chemistry core ideas to investigate how students are connecting their chemistry and biology knowledge.
August 1, 2017
Congratulations to Dr. Sonia Underwood and Dr. Justin Carmel for being awarded a collaborative $2 million NSF grant to continue working with Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University, and Kansas State University on investigating the impact of curricula transformation. As part of this grant we will continue examining the impact of three-dimensional learning (core ideas, scientific practices, and crosscutting concepts) as an approach on helping adoption and implementation of instructional teaching practices.
August 1, 2017
The Underwood research group welcomes Dr. Alex Kararo as a new post-doc in the group on the project of assessing the impact of curriculum transformations. Alex graduated from Purdue University in August 2017 with a PhD in Chemistry Education under the advisement of Dr. Gabriela Weaver and Dr. George Bodner.
May 2017
The Underwood research group welcomes Gabi Gadia to the group as a new undergraduate researcher working on the project of assessing the impact of curriculum transformations.
April 27, 2017
The spring semester has come to an end. It has been a great year of teaching general chemistry. Thank you to all my Learning Assistants and students as everyone has worked so hard this academic year.
April 25, 2017
Congratulations to Rachel for receiving 1st place at the 14th Annual Adelphi Research Conference for her 2016 REU research. (http://aurc.adelphi.edu/award-winners/2017-award-winners/)
April 19, 2017
Congratulations to Abby for receiving the 2017 Zaida C. Morales-Martínez and Howard E. Moore Chemistry Award for her dedication to her classes, teaching, and research. (https://sish.fiu.edu/news/2017/2017-scholarships-awarded-to-sish-undergraduates/)
April 5, 2017
Rachel Colvin gave an outstanding presentation at ACS in San Francisco titled “Making predictions and constructing explanations: An investigation into introductory chemistry students’ understanding of structure-property relationships“.
March 16, 2017
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Core ideas and topics: Building up or drilling down?” in the Journal of Chemical Education.
February 1, 2017
The Underwood research group welcomes Dr. Mashood Kalarattu Kandiyil to the group as a new post-doc working on the project of investigating how student reason about everyday phenomena.
September 8, 2016
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Characterizing college science assessments: The three-dimensional learning assessment protocol” in PLOS One.
August 11, 2016
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “Investigating students’ reasoning about acid-base reactions” in the Journal of Chemical Education.
July 20-21, 2016
Dr. Underwood and colleagues presented the paper “Developing an empirically grounded framework to assess interdisciplinarity of student explanations of everyday phenomena” at the Physics Education Research Conference.
February 5, 2016
The Second Annual STEMposium was such a success. A full day filled with breakfast at President Rosenberg’s house, a keynote presentation from Joan Ferrini-Mundy (the Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Education and Human Resources), a Q&A faculty discussion panel, as well as a poster session.
February 2, 2016
Dr. Underwood and colleagues published “When do students recognize relationships between molecular structure and properties? A longitudinal comparison of the impact of traditional and transformed curricula” in Chemistry Education Research and Practice.