Student-centered laboratories

When students first start working in a more open-ended, student-centered laboratory environment, they typically have many more questions than in a traditional laboratory, and they are almost afraid to make a move without first consulting the instructor. They want to know the right way to proceed. As students continue to work in such a setting throughout the semester, many exhibit increased confidence and independence. 

The person responsible for students in the laboratory setting can have a profound impact on what the students experience during the laboratory period. Experiments that are more student-centered and inquiry-... 

To make WWC or any inquiry-based laboratory experience effective, the student-centered, nonexpository methodology needs to be introduced early in the laboratory program and preferably in the lecture portion of the class as well. One cannot drop one inquiry-based experiment or activity into the curriculum and expect students to feel confi-... 

Rationale Workspaces and other learning environments that support hands-on learning are fundamental resources for learning to design, implement, and operate products, processes, and systems. Students who have access to modem engineering tools, software, and laboratories have opportnnities to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support product, process, and system building competencies. These competencies are best developed in workspaces that are student-centered, user-friendly, accessible, and interactive. 

The research work described here was carried out by an able group of students of Yamaguchi University and Ube Techinical College, and in collaboration with our laboratory staffs and industrial colleagues. In particular, Dr. S. Fujisaki and Dr. T. Okamoto made significant contributions. We thank them all, and also Dr. H. Tsuzuki of Central Analytical Center of Kyushu University undertook X-ray crystal structure analysis of BTMA Br3. Furthermore, we wish to thank Professor M. Tashiro of Kyushu University for useful discussions. Finally, we are grateful to Professor Y. Sasson of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of Orgabrom 93, for the invitation to present this work in Jerusalem. 

Laboratory, where he worked with John Longo and Allan Jacobson on the synthesis and characterization of mixed metal oxides and their application in heterogeneous catalysis. He joined the chemistry faculty of Northwestern University in 1984 where he is now Professor of Chemistry and an active member of the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Kenneth Poeppelmeier has published over 250 research papers and supervised approximately 40 Ph.D. students in the area of inorganic and solid state chemistry. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and has been a Lecturer for the National Science Council of Taiwan (1991), Natural Science Foundation of China (1999) and Chemistry Week in China (2004), and more recently an Institut Universitaire de France Professor (2003). 

The plum pudding structure of the atom was short-lived. It was disproved by Ernest Rutherford, one of Thomsons best students. Rutherford was an unlikely scientist. He was born and raised in rural New Zealand, about as far as you can get from the worlds scientific centers. He became interested in science while in elementary school. He did well at it immediately, winning scholarship after scholarship and degree after degree, all in physics or mathematics. At age 23, Rutherford got the job he wanted. He was awarded a fellowship to study at Cambridge. He elected to work with J.J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory, the most advanced physics lab in the world. 

Haber was slow to grasp the implications of the Nazis rise to power. As Germans boycotted Jewish businesses and Hitler s brownshirts removed Jewish students from university libraries and laboratories, the Nazis passed a law on April 7, 1933, to cleanse the civil service and universities of Jews. By this time, Haber s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was financed by the government and its employees were treated as civil functionaries subject to the new law. Haber himself was exempt because of war work and seniority. Eager for a chemical warfare center, Nazi authorities singled out Haber s institute and ordered him to fire its Jews. At the same time, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society told Haber to somehow keep his important senior scientists. He had until May 2 to act. 

A panel of experts from academia and industry (Table 12.4-2) was assembled to provide the students with professional advice. The HKUST central facilities for Material Characterization and Preparation Facility (MCPF) and Advanced Engineering Material Facility (AEMF) and the laboratories of Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Advanced Technology Center play a pivotal role in the success of the project. Table 12.4-3 lists the equipment used by the students in this project. 

I would like to thank my graduate students Joshua D. Carter, Yongquan Qu, and Rhiannon Porter for their contribution to this work. I also thank C. Echer and C. Song at the National Center for Electron Microscope (NCEM), and J. Rogers and the excellent staff at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) for experimental support. I am also grateful to DOE for support of both facilities. Acknowledgment is made to the Donors of The Petroleum Research Eund, administrated by the American Chemical Society, for partial support of this research. This work is also partially supported by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Eoundation and the National Science Eoundation (CHE-0135132). 

The new workplace was a suite of rooms in the Medical Center. About 15 researchers and students worked and studied in a total area of no more than 1800 square feet, apportioned among five or six rooms. Dr. Pribram had a small office and the only secretary. A larger room was reserved for a small PDP-8 computer and accompanying files and furniture. There were three other doors behind which laboratory space ranged in size from very small to moderately spacious. As a new post-doc student, dressed in slacks and sweater, I felt like a visitor, rather than a staff member. 

Michael, A. J. Prakt. Chem. 1887, 35, 349. Arthur Michael (1853-1942) was horn in Buffalo, New York. He studied under Robert Bunsen, August Hofmann, Adolphe Wurtz, and Dimitri Mendeleev, but never bothered to take a degree. Back to the United States, Michael became a Professor of Chemistry at Tufts University, where he married one of his most brilliant students, Helen Abbott, one of the few women organic chemists in this period. Since he failed miserably as an administrator, Michael and his wife set up their own private laboratory at Newton Center, Massachusetts, where the Michael addition was discovered. 

---