Education Research/Development
I have been a feature editor for the Journal of Chemical Education for some time. My column is entitled: 'The Advanced Classroom and Laboratory'.
Several new graduate courses have been developed. These include: Laser Chemistry, Chemical Kinetics, Chemical Dynamics (with John Winn) and Chemistry and Physics of Materials. I was also involved teaching in the IQN Program in Technology of New Materials located in Wildau (Berlin) in German; an innovative program that brought together faculty and students from around the world for course and lab work in intervals of one to twelve months. My course was entitled Materials Modeling.
At Dartmouth, we have revised our introductory curriculum so that we may offer an additional course to challenge the well-prepared student. Details of this course are available upon request. As a component of that revision, we have completely reworked the laboratory and instituted a number of laser and computer based experiments. This has captured the attention and interest of students with a science orientation and has been well-received.
Laboratory curriculum revision has been extended to the physical chemistry lab as well. Once again, we have turned to laser-based experiments and have found a welcome response from the student body. Much of the laboratory development was performed under the auspices and financial support of the Pew Foundation.
I was also involved in the development of an integrated science and mathematics course for first year students. The course involved a radical reworking of the mathematics presentation, with certain topics appearing in the mathematics section just prior to their implementation in the science lectures. The goal was to make the connections among chemistry, physics and mathematics very obvious. The course was targeted to those who had an interest in physical science or engineering as a major.