Hi All,

I am teaching inorganic for the second time this coming spring quarter (10 week quarter, meets twice a week, with a holiday that takes away a day) and I have decided to go more non-linearly than usual through the text (MFT). I would really appreciate your thoughts on this as a group of professors with extensive experience teaching inorganic. My students are juniors and seniors, some of which have had some p-chem, some of which have not, and most of who have not had much exposure to inorganic-like content beyond a taste in gen chem and ochem.

I have developed over the years an upper level (junior and senior level) materials chemistry course that has become part of our regular curriculum at Williams College.  The course has taken many different forms over the years and has evolved over time.

Thanks to some guidance and support IONiC colleagues, I sat down to critically think about what I want students to learn from my inorganic courses before I wrote my syllabi this spring.  For the first time in 16 years of teaching (shamelessly admitted), I included course learning goals on my syllabi.  I thought it would be interesting to share these and compare to what other folks are doing.

I had an extended conversation with a colleague over the weekend about what he (as a non-solid state chemist) should convey to students about solids.  Happily, this conversation was made all the more pleasant by L'énorme (GIANT cone of Belgian fries) and some good beer.  Here's what I think are the 7 things that students should know about solids coming out of an inorganic chemistry course.  Maybe you don't have time or expertise do all 7, but some is better than none.