Laura DeLong Frost, Associate Professor
Chemistry

Background

Laura Delong Frost, PhD

I grew up in a rural area of Pennsylvania about an hour north of Harrisburg. I graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from Kutztown University, a Pennsylvania analogue of Georgia Southern in that it is a regional comprehensive state university. Since I first studied chemistry in high school and especially in college, it made so much sense. Much of the universe can be understood through molecules. When I considered the nature of living systems, chemistry made even more sense! I love biochemistry and understanding life at the molecular level. Anytime you want to talk about it, let me know, you will get an enthusiastic earful!

From the small college town of Kutztown I moved to the big city of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania where I earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry concentrating in Physical Biochemistry. I moved to the state of Georgia when I was offered a post-doctoral fellowship at Emory University in Atlanta. I began my journey at Georgia Southern in the Fall of 1999. I can't seem to get re-used to the small college town atmosphere which is why I have commuted from downtown Savannah during most of the time I have been teaching at Georgia Southern.

Living in Savannah was the right choice for me; I found my soul-mate for life right down the street when I met my now husband, Baxter (I even changed my last name for him). Together we have two beautiful children, Iris, 5, and Little Baxter, 2. I have lots of outside interests, but currently have little time to indulge in them. I'll list some of them just to give you an idea of who I was before motherhood took over. ;) Long ago (in my twenties?) I ran a couple of prestigious marathons, after that I started playing ultimate Frisbee where I enjoyed competing at both National and International levels. I also enjoy disc golf, hiking, traveling, cooking, good music, and a relaxing evening. Currently I am appreciating life through the eyes of my children who are a constant amazement as they grow and learn.

Teaching and Learning

Reflecting on previous teaching philosophy statements written over the years, I noticed that my overarching statement used in my original job application to

Georgia Southern University still rings true for me. Every college student has the capacity to learn. It is my responsibility as an instructor to facilitate the learning process. I endeavor to create a natural critical learning environment in my classroom that fosters learning.

While at Georgia Southern I have nurtured a passion for teaching chemistry. This would not be possible without colleagues in my department who also share this passion. I appreciate all the dialogue and brainstorming that we do together! In addition to teaching biochemistry, my specialty area, I have really enjoyed teaching the non-majors. Non-science majors often take different approaches to learning of chemistry than science majors. Since 2003, I have been restructuring the core course CHEM 1140 (Introduction to General, Organic, and Biochemistry) taken mainly by allied health professions in a revolutionary way through integrating the topics of General, Organic, and Biochemistry. In 2005, my colleague Dr. Todd Deal (featured faculty February 2007) and I began writing a textbook based on this integrated approach.

In the Fall of 2006 I began teaching CHEM 1140 using a guided-inquiry (GI) approach called Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL). The basic structure of this classroom is as follows:

• No lectures are given.
• Students work in groups (usually 4) and have assigned roles within the group.
• Groups use GI activities which follow the constructivist learning cycle paradigm to develop and learn concepts.
• A five-minute quiz is given and reviewed at the beginning of each class on the previous day's material.
• Students are graded individually on hour exams and final exams.

For me, it is not enough to adopt a new approach to teaching without objectively assessing the value that it has to student learning. Student evaluations become meaningless if not accompanied by evidence of student learning.

Each semester I evaluate the effectiveness of the POGIL approach to student learning by statistical examination of the following:

• Final Grade Distribution
• Final Exam Scores
• Common Final Exam Questions by Learning Level (% students answering correctly)
• Common Final Exam Questions by Topic (% students answering correctly)

The results of these analyses are compared to pre-POGIL sections of this course where I had received some of my highest student evaluations to date using what can be described as an interactive lecture approach (lecture first followed by active learning exercises). I have been able to show that students learning under the POGIL approach learn more chemistry as evidenced by this assessment.
In addition to this direct assessment of learning, I also measure student perceptions of learning using both a formative and a summative assessment. Both of these instruments have been very revealing regarding student learning perceptions. I have seen instances where student perceptions of learning (their subjective measure) don't actually align with the actual learning that is taking place (a more objective measure)!

All of this allowed me to make Georgia Southern University proud when I accepted the 2007 Board of Regents Award for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Some days I feel like I am just getting started. There are always new challenges in the classroom and in the research lab, and always room for improvement. I try to keep student learning at the forefront. We are here to help them learn.