Developing and Using Information Technologies to Teach Chemistry

Nick Turro
William P. Schweitzer Professor of Chemistry
Columbia University
turro@chem.columbia.edu

My interest in technology arose about the same time as my interest in the way that students learn. This occurred in the '80s when I was teaching general chemistry. I had 40 students -- out of a class of 250 -- who were failing the course and I just couldn't seem to reach them. I was trying everything and nothing seemed to work. With some help from a colleague in science education, I learned that my students were struggling with which rules -- of all those available -- to apply to their chemistry problems, that they benefited from

Nick Turro's home page IR tutor Chem C3045 New Media Center for Teaching and Learning Macromind Wiley Publishers

interactive engagement with peers in working on problems that were put into context by the me, and that they performed better when they were able to visualize the chemistry. This new knowledge, and my interest in computers, led me to work with a graduate student to create a piece of software that my students could use to understand infrared spectroscopy. The result was IR Tutor, and it was so successful in bringing students up to speed in this topic that I thought that other faculty here at Columbia would benefit from the use of technology in their teaching. So, some colleagues and I obtained NSF funding to hire undergraduates to work with faculty to create pieces of software with science content. This, again, worked well both for the undergraduates and faculty: undergraduates got a chance to work with a professor and learn some science, and faculty increased their knowledge and use of computers. This success, and the growing use of computers, helped convince Columbia to create a center that supports faculty use of technology in their teaching, called the New Media Center. If you have any questions about anything I mentioned, please contact me at: njt3@columbia.edu