A recent Inorganic Chemistry viewpoint article, "Great Expectations: Using an Analysis of Current Practices To Propose a Framework for the Undergraduate Inorganic Curriculum” (Inorg. Chem., 2015, 54, 8859-8868) summarized that the undergraduate inorganic chemistry curriculum in the United States is broad and that there is tremendous variation in content coverage.  There is no single inorganic chemistry course.

I organized and chaired a symposium at the Philadelphia ACS meeting, entitled “Advances in Teaching Inorganic Chemistry Lecture and Laboratory.”  Sixteen presenters discussed the Inorganic Chemistry curriculum, both lecture and laboratory at their college or university.  The symposium also gave presenters an opportunity to present innovative new teaching pedagogies for inorganic chemistry.

Chip Nataro (Lafayette College) and Elizabeth Jamieson (Smith College) co-presented a talk, “Leveraging resources on VIPEr to teach inorganic chemistry.” Chip and Elizabeth highlighted the ways that faculty can use the IONiC network and VIPEr resources to incorporate current research and active learning strategies in their inorganic chemistry course(s).

Anthony Fernandez (Merrimack College) presented a talk “Evolving State of Inorganic Chemistry at Merrimack College.”  Over the past 16 years, the inorganic chemistry curriculum at Merrimack College has undergone significant changes in the topics included in the course, in the laboratory curriculum, and in its location in the typical course sequence followed by chemistry and biochemistry majors.

Alexsandra Silva (SUNY Binghamton) presented a talk “From breadth to depth: An integrated approach to providing depth for students in inorganic chemistry.”  At SUNY Binghamton a one-semester breadth course designed to introduce students to all areas of inorganic chemistry has been developed.  After a student passes this course, there is a range of options for the second semester where the students have the opportunity to learn an area of inorganic chemistry in depth.

Jonathan Parr (Yale University) presented a talk “The inorganic curriculum for undergraduates at Yale” that outlined the current inorganic chemistry requirement for chemistry majors at Yale and the courses that are on offer.  The talk went on to detail the development of an inorganic chemistry laboratory course that offers a writing intensive designation.

Maria Parr and Ralph Moyer (Trinity College, CT) co-presented a talk “Inorganic Chemistry at Trinity College.”  The Chemistry Department at Trinity College offers two semesters of inorganic chemistry for chemistry and biochemistry majors who are typically in their junior year.  The first semester is required for chemistry and biochemistry majors.  The second semester, is required for chemistry majors, and includes a laboratory component where students can explore the role of magnetic susceptibility, X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic methods for structural characterization of inorganic and organometallic systems.

I presented a talk “Advanced Inorganic Chemistry Lecture and Laboratory at Fairfield University.  The course is an upper-level lecture and laboratory course for junior and senior chemistry and biochemistry majors and minors. The lecture course introduces students to the interdependence of chemical bonding, spectroscopic characteristics, and reactivity properties of coordination compounds and complexes using the fundamental concept of symmetry. The laboratory course is a synthetic inorganic lab with an emphasis placed on characterization. At the present time, the laboratory section is only required for students who seek ACS Certified degrees.

Matthew Guberman-Pfeffer and John Miecznikowski (Fairfield University) co-presented a talk “Adapting Advanced Inorganic Chemistry lecture and laboratory instruction for a legally blind student.” The presenters gave examples when to verbal explanations were preferred (e.g. symmetry properties, character tables, and molecular orbital diagrams) and instances when tactile presentations of the material were helpful.   The assistance that was provided for the blind student in both lecture and laboratory were also thoroughly described.

Marta Guron and Jared Paul (Villanova University) co-presented a talk “Introduction of sustainability topics into the inorganic chemistry laboratory.”  At Villanova University, Inorganic Chemistry and the laboratory experience are offered for first-year chemistry majors. Recently, the presenters have further modified the laboratory experience to incorporate sustainability throughout the semester with the aims of exposing students to this critical idea early and often.

After a lunch break, George Bodner (Purdue University) presented a talk “Successfully predicting the product(s) of an inorganic reaction:  What are the cues that make this possible?” George asserted that both undergraduates and graduate students had difficulty predicting the products of reactions and therefore resorted to rote memorization.  He also asserted that graduate students had appropriate strategies for solving the problem, but lacked an understanding of when a particular strategies, would be appropriate.  Finally, he asserted that faculty used strategies similar to those of graduate students, but understood which strategy was appropriate to a particular situation. 

Abigail Shelton (University of Tennessee at Martin) presented a talk “Physical inorganic:  Current practices and course impact.”  The only inorganic course offered at the University of Tennessee at Martin is a senior level lecture course titled Physical Inorganic. The three-credit hour course is taught every fall and introduces point groups, reducible representations, character tables, molecular orbital theory, crystal field, and solid-state chemistry, with an emphasis on connections to physical chemistry. There is no laboratory component of the course despite the desire of the students to have an associated laboratory. 

Craig Bayse (Old Dominion University) presented a talk “Humanizing chemistry:  Incorporation of cultural themes into the foundational inorganic chemistry sequence.”  The Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at Old Dominion University established a foundational inorganic chemistry course sequence in 2010 in response to revisions to the ACS curriculum. This sequence includes separate lecture and lab courses that require the successful completion of General Chemistry. The lecture portion was redesigned in recent years to put a human face upon the chemical concepts. These discussions bring in the cultural and historical impacts of elements as a means of guiding students so that they see applications of chemical concepts beyond the course material.   The laboratory course was also designed to account for the broad range of experience by front-loading experiments that develop qualitative skills and instrumental tools (IR, UV/Vis, magnetic susceptibility).

Claude Mertzenich (Luther College) presented a talk “Cafeteria-style advanced inorganic chemistry curriculum at Luther College.” Starting in 2005-2006, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry (AIC) coursework was split into three, half-semester courses: (1) Coordination & organometallic; (2) physical inorganic; and (3) solid-state. After 2005-2006, three administrative changes were made to the laboratory course: (1) The laboratory was moved to the January term; (2) the laboratory became a more significant way for students to satisfy the inorganic portion of the chemistry major; and (3) the laboratory was also designated as a course which satisfies a certain all-college requirement.

Jason Vohs (Saint Vincent College) presented a talk “What about the rest of the elements?  How inorganic chemistry fits into a liberal arts education.”  At Saint Vincent College, students take one three-credit Inorganic Chemistry Course, one three-credit Special Topics Course, and one two credit Advanced Chemical Methods Course.  Journal articles and computational studies are used to supplement the classes.  The Advanced Chemical Methods Course covers advanced organic and inorganic techniques and the students complete five-week projects.

Tamara Hamilton (Barry University) presented a talk “In or out?  Inorganic chemistry curriculum at Barry University.”  Inorganic Chemistry at Barry University is a one-semester junior-level course with laboratory required for all chemistry majors, including those in the biochemistry track. Current coverage includes atomic structure, simple bonding theories, coordination chemistry, symmetry, molecular orbitals and the solid state. The laboratory includes IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility and working with X-ray crystallography data.

Ronald See (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) presented the talk “Teaching molecular orbital theory in the context of computational chemistry.” Molecular orbital (MO) theory has been taught at Indiana University of Pennsylvania using an approach that integrates the concepts of MO theory with the computational output of programs such as Gaussian and Spartan. It is believed that this approach makes MO theory more understandable and concrete to the student, and also better equips the student to make use of computational techniques in subsequent research experiences.

Susanne Riegel (Application Chemistry at Nanalysis in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) presented a talk “Incorporation of benchtop NMR spectroscopy into undergraduate inorganic laboratories:  An active learning approach.” The presenter described methods for unique incorporation of the NMReady benchtop spectrometer into inorganic undergraduate laboratory experiments and illustrated how students can learn the proper technique to prepare samples, and use other important NMR nuclei (e.g., ¹⁹F, ³¹P) to monitor and characterize reaction mixtures and products.