Chemistry and Biochemistry
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Dr. Robert E. Blake, Jr.

Title:

Assistant Professor

Education:

Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, 1996; Postdoctoral Study, Southern Methodist University, 1995-97

Research Area:

Chemical Education

Office:

Phone:

Email:

Chemistry 036

806-742-4200

Bob.Blake@ttu.edu

 

 

Principal Research Interests

Professor Blake's primary research is in the field of chemical education.  All of this work is centered on the idea that the teacher frequently learns more than the student does in the traditional model of teaching and learning.  The teacher prepares instructional materials, explains key concepts repeatedly, prepares assignments and grades those assignments.  A common statement among teachers is "you never really know something until you teach it".  Our mission is to design teaching-related activities for undergraduate students ("reversed-role learning") in order to enhance the breadth and depth of student knowledge.  Current or planned projects in this area of include the following:

  • Peer-mentoring of small groups
  • The development of workbooks, lab manuals and WWW pages
  • Traditional teaching assistantships

Normally, educational initiatives focus their attention on the performance of the students who are being served by the new activities or novel curricular materials.  We predict that the impact of this learning experience on our student-teachers will be dramatic and very positive.  These student-teachers will be re-engaging their newly-learned course content to reinforce their knowledge of the material, rather than starting the process of forgetting newly learned ideas and skills.

Assessment of our activities is a key step in documenting the effectiveness of this "reverse role" model of teaching.  The following measures are being implemented:

  • Pre- and post-testing for content knowledge
  • Persistence to upper-division classes
  • Performance in upper-division classes
  • Level  and quality of participation in departmental research activities
  • Interviews and focus groups to assess student-teacher satisfaction

 

Representative Publications