Letters of recommendation
Description
This is a document that I hand out to every student I have, outlining what I
Communication-style lab reports
Description
For the past four years, I have required my inorganic students to write short 3-page formal lab reports in the form of communication to the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This exercise has relieved some of the stress on my students who are writing reports of other science classes and simplified my grading. Using Jeffrey Kovac's Writing Across the Chemistry Curriculum: An Instructor's Handbook as a starting point, I have developed a rubric to provide qualitative feedback to the stu
Introducing Inorganic Chemistry - First Day Activities
Description
Every time I teach inorganic, I always ask myself the question: “What’s the best way to motivate the course and get the students excited?” A long time ago, I decided it’s important to start with some music. (Until last year, Tom Lehrer’s The Elements was my favorite. As a TMBG fan, I’ve swiched to Meet the Elements.)
12 Slides About African American Contributions to the Chemical Sciences
Description
This presentation provides a brief overview of the contributions of five AfricanAmerican chemists, including two inorganic chemists. George Washington Carver is quite often themost celebrated African American chemist (soil chemist), but he is only one individual! There are many other African Americans that have made important and significant contributions to the chemical sciences. The profiles include inorganic chemists, namely, Professor Gregory H. Robinson, University of Georgia and Dr. Novella Bridges, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
Protein Data Bank - A Beginner's Guide
Description
Formal NSF Styled Proposal Writing in Preparation for Original Multi-Week Laboratory Projects
Description
The advanced inorganic chemistry course is completed by all chemistry majors at Wabash College during the fall of their senior year. The capstone character of the course provides an excellent opportunity for utilizing an investigator model of laboratory learning. Student teams are responsible for the preparation of a formal, National Science Foundation (NSF) styled proposal stating the goals, context, experimental timetable, safety considerations, and budget for the execution of an original laboratory project.
Google Docs for Summer Research
Description
I am using Google Docs in my research lab for a variety of purposes, and I thought it might be helpful to share how I am using them. Google docs allows simulataneous editing by multiple people, and everyone needs a Google ID to do that. My research group and I are using one document to write up research results in paper format, one document to keep track of weekly goals, one document for general instrumentation and experimental technique trouble-shooting, and one to keep track of any work that occurs after hours when I am not around.
ACS Meeting Content- Slides and Audio
Description
The ACS has posted slides and audio for selected talks from recent national meetings. Students have the opportunity to listen to talks by research leaders whose work may relate to a topic discussed in class or to an undergraduate research project. This will also be a great resource for students who are gathering information about potential graduate research groups.
The Chemmies: A Descriptive Chemistry Audio/Video Research Project
Description
This project was initiated as a way to enhance the descriptive inorganic chemistry unit presented in our General Chemistry II curriculum. As the time available in the term prohibited the amount of lecture time needed to cover this vast array of material, the idea of a research project allowed for students to investigate an inorganic chemistry topic of keen interest to them over the course of the semester. A previous term's attempt using a research paper project was quite unpopular, so the idea of a multimedia presentation was devised as an alternative to achieve similar learning goals. S
Video explanations and practice problems of basic chemistry and math topics
Description
This is a website which links to a wide variety of good quality YouTube mini-lectures on basic topics in chemistry, mathematics, physics and a variety of other sciences. Each video is about 10 minutes long and many go through example problems slowly and completely.