Yezierski Research Group
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YRG Latest News
3/30/2026: YRG PAPER PUBLISHED! This article has SIX undergraduate co-authors, including our first author.
Barman, M. E., Mikes-Thacker, M. L., Moorehead, M. E., Wissman, M., Gerken, W., Ryland, S. M., & Yezierski, E. J. (2026). Examining generative, extraneous, and essential features in chemistry YouTube videos: Recommendations for practice, Journal of Chemical Education, ASAP. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5c01225. CONGRATULATIONS to a wonderful author team!
3/24/2026: The 2026 National Awards Banquet and Ceremony was one of the most exciting nights of my career! Joined by my family and nominators Stacey Lowery Bretz, Alice Putti, Norb Pienta, and other symposium contributors Debbie Herrington, Roy Tasker, Matt Wu, and Jordan Harshman, I accepted my award on stage at what felt like to me the Academy Awards. Thank you to the ACS Exams Institute for endowing the award in perpetuity. Special thanks go to Kristen Murphy (Director, ACS Exams Insitute), Matt Mio (Chair, BoT), and Rigoberto Hernandez (ACS President) for presenting me with the award in front of the Society.
3/23/2026: Thank you to the amazing contributors to "A Symposium to Honor Ellen J. Yezierski, 2026 Winner of the ACS Award for Achievement in Research for the Teaching and Learning of Chemistry" at the ATL Spring ACS Meeting! I am grateful to Drs. Stacey Lowery Bretz, Deborah Herrington, Roy Tasker, Norb Pienta, Justin Pratt, Meng Yang Matthew Wu, and Jordan Harshman. 2/10/2026: What a fabulous group of faculty! I enjoyed spending the day with the Chemistry Education Interest Group at The Pennsylvania State University Department of Chemistry. Many thanks to Dr. Linlin Jensen for the kind invitation. I sure was energized by the department's scholarly teaching, SoTL, and DBER projects and hope to see everyone again this summer at the BCCE.
2/9/2026: The VisChem Express Institutes (VCXs) are blowing up. I have had the honor of personally teaching 481 U.S. secondary chemistry teachers the VisChem Approach and introducing them to Roy Tasker's molecular-level animations. We have 6 more VCXs through July 2026. Learn more at VisChem.org. That makes a total of 539 teachers who have learned the VisChem Approach through our project. Wow!
Research in the Yezierski Group aims to improve conceptual understanding of chemistry with a focus on the dynamics of teaching chemistry and teacher change. The goal of our work is characterizing and reforming instruction across a variety of grade levels (middle school, high school, and college) and learning environments (formal and informal). Projects have employed a variety of designs and methods that explore innovations in particulate-centered curricula, scientific reasoning, chemistry self-concept, learning in chemistry outreach, formative assessment, characterizing animation use and instructional materials, and teacher change. Current projects focus on instructional change and its outcomes using the VisChem Approach (storyboarding chemical phenomena supported with dynamic molecular-level animations) and the evaluation of YouTube chemistry videos using Mayer's Multimedia Principles.
If you're interested in learning more about our group's work, please browse our People and Publications pages. Please contact Dr. Yezierski to discuss what you could do and learn as an undergraduate member of the Yezierski Research Group. I am not currently accepting graduate students to the group.
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