What makes a successful revolution in teaching? It starts with a fundamental idea that many acknowledge as true. Next, the idea has to be researched to better understand how it affects teaching and learning. Finally, the idea has to be incorporated into the everyday process of teaching and learning. This is how the revolution of the particulate nature of matter started. Alex Johnstone presented the idea that chemists present chemistry on the symbolic level with equations and symbols and work with it on the macroscopic level in lab and demonstrations but understand it on the particulate level of particle interaction. Researchers, including Vickie Williamson, demonstrated just how important particulate knowledge is in student learning. My own research on this topic demonstrated how useful the particulate approach was in helping students, especially women, increase their achievement in chemistry. This presentation will trace Vickie’s contribution to the particulate nature of matter revolution and show how her work influenced many of us.

Visualizing chemistry: From idea to research to practice

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.