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Paula Weiss in front of beige wall

Paula Weiss

Senior Instructor
Department of Chemistry
Oregon State University

Paula Weiss

Senior Instructor
Department of Chemistry
Oregon State University

Paula Weiss is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Chemistry at OSU. She earned an Associate’s degree from New River Community College, a Bachelor’s degree from Radford University, and a Master's degree from Virginia Tech. She currently teaches general chemistry, advises Chemistry majors, and serves as a mentor to chemistry education students. She has been an Action Research Fellow through the ESTEME@OSU Project and an Inclusive Excellence Fellow for the IE@OSU project.

Her teaching practices include active learning, engaging students in metacognition, and a focus on problem solving process. She uses an active learning approach in her teaching, frequently using class time for student problem solving. As part of her IE work, she had students reflect in class each week on what topics they felt confident about and which she felt they were struggling with. She used the results of these reflections to guide teaching assistants in the planning of weekly recitation sessions. She also had students engage in solved problem analysis, examining the solutions to problems that contain errors. This gives students a different pathway to practice their problem solving and improve retention.

Education

M.S. Chemistry