Dr Peter Hoare
Chemistry Outreach Officer

Background

I am a former secondary school Chemistry teacher with 20 years experience. I was on secondment to the School of Chemistry for the 2008-09 academic year as a School Teacher Fellow, funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry's "Chemistry for Our Future" (CFOF) project to look at both the transition from A-level to undergraduate study and outreach to promote Chemistry as a subject and a career to students in local schools and colleges.

Roles and Responsibilities

The main aims of the Chemistry Outreach Officer are to:

1. develop and deliver high quality Outreach activities to local and regional schools and colleges which promote the study of Chemistry both as an academic discipline and as a subject for further study at University.

2. support local and regional teachers in their delivery of Chemistry, especially with reference to practical work and current applications of exam specification Chemistry to the real world.

3. raise awareness amongst teachers, students and their parents of what it is like to study chemistry at university, the benefits of higher education and the career options available to chemical science graduates.

4. To develop regular and sustainable links between the School of Chemistry and Chemistry teachers in local and regional schools and colleges.

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Chemistry, Durham University, 1984.
PhD Organic Chemistry, Durham University, 1989 - thesis title "Chemistry of Halogenated Triazines and Related Systems" Supervisors Prof. R.D. Chambers and Dr. (now Prof.) M.R. Bryce.
PGCE (Chemistry & PE/Games), Newcastle University, 1989.

Previous Positions

RSC School Teacher Fellow, seconded to the School of Chemistry, Newcastle University, 2008 - 2009.
Chemistry Teacher at Ponteland Community High School, Northumberland, 1989 - 2009.

Memberships

Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC).
Caravan Club.
British Rowing.
Chester FC Supporters Trust.
National Trust.
Durham Wildlife Trust.

Informal Interests

heavily involved in the administration of the sport of Rowing in the North-East:
Founder and coach of Ponteland High School Rowing Club in 1990 (disbanded by the school in July 2009).
Chairman, Northern Regional Umpires Commission (since 2006).
Secretary, Hexham Regatta since 1998 (now one of the largest one day regattas in the UK).

Undergraduate Teaching

None with current undergraduates - but I continue to support several academic colleagues in the use of the Turning Point electronic voting system across various undergraduate chemistry modules in the current academic year.
I do also run one of the Chemistry academic sessions for the PARTNERS assessed summer school.

Research Interests

I developed a fledgling interest in e-learning methodologies during my RSC School Teacher Fellowship year, especially the use of Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) for both formative and summative feedback and also for efficient data collection and analysis from student surveys and questionnaires. I am also interested in the potential use of screen-capture software, e.g. Camtasia, to produce teaching and/or revision video clips.

Current Work

I am currently engaged in a collaborative project with Dr Susan Henderson from the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre to develop specific teaching and/or self-study activities suitable for both post-16 and/or first-year UK undergraduate chemistry students (or equivalents) using their WebCSD platform for both outreach and teaching. Initial activities were developed in summer 2011 by Hollie Staward, a local 6th form student, as part of a 4 week Nuffield Bursary project. Further activities were developed in summer 2012 by Mumena Ali, Gabriel Bramley and Emma Burnett, three further Nuffield Bursary students and Kate Leary, an MChem graduate working as a Chemistry Outreach Intern. Please contact me if you are a teacher/lecturer or student interested in trialling these resources. Development of further resources and robust evaluation will be carried out by Steven Carman, my MChem project student in the 2012-13 academic year.

I coordinated an internal teaching and learning project within the School of Chemistry, funded by the University's UTLC Innovation Fund, to trial and evaluate the use of the Turning Point electronic voting system handsets by several academic colleagues in undergraduate chemistry teaching across various modules in the 2010-11 academic year. In 2011-12 one of my stage 4 MChem students, Helen Herdman, conducted a similar project with chemistry classes in a local secondary school, the results of which have recently (November 2012) been submitted for publication.

I was also a member of the JISC-funded HEA UK Physical Sciences Centre-led "Skills for Scientists" Open Educational Resources (OER) pilot project consortium (2009-10) which researched into the processes and issues involved with making teaching resources available via the internet and other open access sources, including JISC's own Jorum Open website. You can view the project Wiki and download the resources here: skillsforscientists.pbworks.com

Future Research

I hope to develop some pedagogic chemistry education research projects in either or both of the above areas in collaboration with local schools and other academics during the tenure of this post.

Postgraduate Supervision

Miss RP Moore; MChem stage 4 project student 2010-11; project title "Enhancing the Outreach Experience; Exploring Synthetic Routes to Fruit Flavouring Esters".

Miss HM Ogley; MChem stage 4 project student 2011-12; project title "Enhancing the Outreach Experience; Further Synthetic Routes to Fruit Flavouring Esters".

Miss HM Herdman; MChem stage 4 project student 2011-12; project title "Enhancing Teaching and Learning in School Chemistry Classes using Electronic Voting Systems".

SN Carman; MChem stage 4 project student 2012-13; project title "Developing and Evaluating Self-Study Learning Resources for Chemistry Using the WebCSD Online Crystallographic Database".

Funding

JISC HEA UK Physical Sciences Centre "Skills for Scientists" OER project - £8000 - April 2010.
UTLC Innovation Fund - £5000 - investigating the use of Turning Point in undergraduate chemistry teaching - April 2010.