Starting a Career in Science: Challenges and Successes
Developing a Corporate R&D Career
Making Chemistry More Accessible
Envisioning Ancient Spaces, Virtually
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Making Chemistry More Accessible
Many of Michelle M. Francl's chemistry students use iPods when they study. But they aren't listening to music; they're reviewing a podcast of a recent class.
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Michelle Francl |
Francl — professor and chair of chemistry — says the podcasting effort grew out of her desire to create an archive of her lectures. Utimately, the idea evolved from a personal project to a pedagogical tool, Francl says. "My 9-year-old and 11-year-old sons thought it would be fun if we broadcast the lectures on iTunes." A lot of other people apparently agreed — students and chemistry aficionados tuned in, and at one point, she says, "we were in the top 100 podcasts, up there with Al Franken and the President's radio address."
The podcasts turned out to be a boon for students, Francl says. "It's like having TiVo — with a mute and a pause button — for the professor." Students can fast-forward to the parts they have difficulty understanding. "It never stopped anyone from going to class," Francl notes. Quite the opposite — they can now repeat the lecture as many times as necessary to allow the material to sink in.
Fun Technology
Francl says the technology allows her to adjust her lectures. In the past, she explains, she would go over the easier problems in class and ask students to tackle the more challenging formulas as a homework assignment. But with podcasting, she says, "The students can just listen to me talk about the easy material at home, and we can do the hard stuff in class."
Francl, a computational and theoretical chemist, notes with infectious enthusiasm, "I've been having a fun time with technology lately." In September 2005, she and a group of campus volunteers banded together as a "flash mob" to create a supercomputer by linking laptops together. The demonstration was the brainchild of Francl's brother, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Patrick J. Miller, who gave a presentation to students over a hoagie dinner. Francl had previously organized a similar flash-mob supercomputing event at the fall 2004 meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia. "Instead of presenting something we had done months ago, we did science live," she says.
Getting the Fundamentals
Francl received her bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of California at Irvine, did postdoctoral research at Princeton University and spent a year on the faculty at Haverford College before joining Bryn Mawr's chemistry department in 1986. She says she realized teaching materials needed livening up when she discovered that textbooks had changed little from the ones her parents had used in the 1950s. Throughout her career, she says, she has incorporated material from outside the textbook into her teaching. "I connect my lectures to current research," she notes. "Bryn Mawr students are very curious and interested in what's going on. I'll talk about a paper from the most recent issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry and show them that they can read it and understand it."
Francl has received a National Science Foundation grant for her Physical Chemistry in Context project. "It allows students to get the fundamentals," she explains, "but to get them in a way that crosses fields and uses the research literature." One lesson focuses on chemistry in Geoffrey Chaucer's writing. Another shows how chemistry is used to calculate the age of ostrich eggs, which were used by ancient societies as containers — an approach that yields anthropological and archaeological insights. "You can see chemistry play out in the culture," Francl explains. "It doesn't just show up on the test, and then you forget about it. It's connected to other things you know and care about."
Francl has also created a set of exercises to enliven physical chemistry lectures. The materials, which use the Mathematica computer program, have been peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Chemical Education. They are available through the National Science Digital Library at www.nsdl.org.
Useful Tools
Francl, author of A Survival Guide for Physical Chemistry (Physics Curriculum & Instruction Press, 2001) and proprietor of "The Culture of Chemistry" blog (http://cultureofchemistry.blogspot.com), notes, "The ultimate goal of the projects is to interest more students in chemistry and have more students be able to use the principles of physical chemistry in whatever they go off to do, whether they become biochemists or organic chemists or physicians."
Francl says she enjoys working at a liberal-arts institution because it "fosters the interaction between the ivory tower and the world. I can think about teaching without the feeling that it's taking time from research."
Francl is currently investigating rotation in the trifluoromethyl group in collaboration with Bryn Mawr colleagues Peter A. Beckmann, professor of physics, and W. Alton Jones Professor of Chemistry Frank B. Mallory. She Is also the director of planning and development for the College's new Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center and is involved in another, more personal interdisciplinary collaboration — her husband is Professor of Mathematics Victor Donnay. While it's challenging to balance all her responsibilities, she says, "I like it when things function effectively for my colleagues. I also like to see the lights turn on for my students."
Barbara Spector writes on science and technology as well as business topics. She is the editor-in-chief of Family Business magazine and former editor of The Scientist.