Professor: Dr. Elliot Ennis, Organic Chemistry

List of Questions:

Where did you grow up?

What are your hobbies?

Why did you choose chemistry?

Which field of chemistry did you study?

What was your college experience like?

What graduate research did you do?

How is your research going now?

If you could research anything, what would the topic be?

What training is there to be a professor?

What planning goes into your teaching?

What is your favorite part about teaching?

What are some of your proudest professional achievements?

Reflection: I chose Dr. Ennis to interview because he is also my adviser, so I have already talked to him frequently. He is also one of the friendliest and down to Earth professors I have ever had, so talking to him is easy. Dr. Ennis also teaches my major, so it was a good opportunity to learn about what I could do with my major farther down the road. Dr. Ennis answered most questions about the way I expected. I know he's a fairly quirky guy, so I expected quirky answers. His interests were slightly surprising as I didn't see him as a gun loving kind of guy. I was surprised that he had no training as a teacher and that every teaching technique he uses is from trial and error. Also, I didn't expect that he had studied three different fields of chemistry: Organic, Analytical, and Educational. I was impressed to learn that he made it into the board of the American Chemical Society as a graduate student. It also baffled me just how complicated his research was. I was happy to learn that Dr. Ennis loves helping students and seeing them get the material. His doctorate was editing a textbook so that he could help students even more. I learned how many different types of research can be done in the chemistry field and just how deep they can be. I learned that college teaching is a lot about trial and error and experimenting with different teaching methods. This interview helped me realize what a caring person Dr. Ennis and how much he wants to see his students succeed. It also helped me realize just how much work professors put into their lectures and how their teaching methods evolve.

Self-Designed

Experiment: Use a Google doc for a group project, and observe communication and efficiency of group members.

Project: Oral presentation for Chemistry Lab

Presentation style: Google slides

Results: The presentation was very well organized and completed with little trouble. Group members worked together to give all necessary information. Only took 2 hours to complete. Work was shared equally. Because of the organization of the slides, I'm confident that we will do well on the presentation.

Reflection: This experiment was a huge success. The Google slide let everyone in the group put in information at the same time greatly increasing efficiency. The slide was also incredibly easy to set up and edit. All of the members were happy to contribute. The data we collected were easy to display and could be changed easily if there were errors. Everyone in the group communicated well about what should be on each slide, and there wasn't just one person typing in all the information and not contributing to the actual material.