Sam Pazicni is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of New Hampshire. He received B.A. degrees in Chemistry and Music from Washington and Jefferson College, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin (with Judith Burstyn), and performed post-doctoral research in Biophysics (with Jim Penner-Hahn) and Chemistry Education (with Brian Coppola) at the University of Michigan. At UNH, Sam leads an active chemistry education research group, serves as the coordinator for undergraduate Chemistry programs, and co-directs the CC2CEPS Scholarship Program.He is also a teaching/learning/assessment fellow with UNH’s Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning. Sam is also very active within the American Chemical Society, where he currently serves on the Society Committee on Education, the Graduate Education Advisory Board, and on the Division of Chemical Education's Chemistry Education Research Committee.
In general, we are interested in how various student individual differences (e.g. comprehension ability, spatial ability, prior chemistry knowledge, etc.) affect learning and resource use in chemistry. We work to develop, and test learning intervention strategies aimed at abating performance deficits attributed to these individual differences. We also generally interested in curriculum development/assessment, faculty professional development, as well as quantitative research methods in chemistry education.
- Comprehension, text, and words: How language affects teaching and learning in chemistry
- Spatial reasoning applied to inorganic chemistry: How students learn to use symmetry to spatially interrogate molecular and solid-state structure
- Course curriculum assessment using network analysis
- Illusions of competence: When students don’t know enough to know what they don’t know (collaboration with Chris Bauer)
- Overcoming transfer shock: supporting community colleges students as they transfer to UNH to complete a baccalaureate degree in a STEM field (collaboration with Meg Greenslade and UNH’s Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning)
- Using three-dimensional learning as an opportunity for General Chemistry faculty development (collaboration with Don Wink and the American Chemical Society)
- Developing instructional methodologies to facilitate peer instruction in the classroom
- Assessment methods to evaluate learning progressions in undergraduate chemistry;
- Enhancing graduate student professional development through teaching.
