PhD candidate, Chemistry
Duke University, Durham, NC
James Harrington's Teaching Statement
My excitement for science and my desire to teach has been influenced heavily by one of the greatest scholars of this age, Dr. Beakman from the television show, "Beakman’s World." While it may not sound very intellectual to say that my teaching was influenced by a Saturday morning children’s science show, I feel that the greatest gift that Beakman gave to his viewers was a sense of awe and excitement at science in general, and that sense of excitement is a major factor in helping students to learn in any field, let alone in the chemistry classroom. Having excitement for the subject that one is teaching is the first step to show the student that the subject is more than just a dry field in dusty tomes. I have often been known to tell chemistry jokes in class to pass the time, and I always try to show students the way to get to an answer without giving it to them, and showing pleasure when they figure it out. I also have made myself available to students after class for questions and try to answer e-mails promptly to minimize student frustration with the material being covered.
One of my own earliest memories about chemistry concerns visiting the Discovery Place museum in Charlotte and attending the chemistry demonstration shows. I would be amazed at the liquids that would, as if by magic, change colors, I would thrill at the fiery demonstrations of the energy contained in hydrogen, and I would wonder at the liquid nitrogen-frozen bananas that could hammer in a nail. While chemistry demonstrations are at times viewed as quaint and without substance in the classroom, my personal feeling is that demonstrations can act as substantive accompaniments to lecture materials (see my "Activities" page for 
further explanation) and can serve as novel ways to break up the tedium of lectures, providing a change of pace for students and providing observable demonstrations of principles covered during lecture. This can also provide alternative ways of thinking about important chemical concepts beyond the lines of text and mathematical equations that students normally find in textbooks. One example of this could be using the iodine clock reaction to demonstrate the principles of chemical kinetics, showing that changes in solution concentrations will change the amount of time it takes a reaction to go to completion. Also, by adding a series of ligands to a solution of nickel (II) ion, each stronger than the next, resulting in subsequent color changes, can qualitatively demonstrate the principle of chemical equilibrium to show that adding new reactants to an equilibrium or increasing the concentration of existing reactants will shift equilibria, as an example of LeChatelier’s Principle. Chemical demonstrations can serve as useful teaching tools for a variety of courses, from General Chemistry to Physical Chemistry to Inorganic Chemistry, and can be perceived as mini-labs that the entire class does at the same time, collaborating to determine what happened in the demonstrations. They can also be used as helpful subjects for quizzes to ensure that students are grasping the concepts behind the demonstrations. This method of testing for comprehension gives the students a reference from personal experience to help in reasoning through the questions asked. One such application is use in conjunction with technologies, such as the PRS system, to act as a mini-assessment of where the students are in terms of their understanding the material (sample PRS slide in powerpoint). It is also possible to provide these examples outside of class by videotaping the demonstrations with voiceovers of the explanation of the demonstration and the theoretical underpinnings of the demonstration to help tie the demonstration into previously covered concepts (Examples to be posted at a later date).
These memories were what fueled my interest in science, just as much as learning the real-world applications of the principles of chemistry led me to find a real justification for pursuing the field. It is also important to the average student to show the relevance of a subject to their lives and to lead the student to understand the importance of chemistry in the real world, in order to show that the color changes and flames they see in lab or in class are more than just a novelty. Our challenge as teachers is then to present real-life examples of chemistry at work, while still explaining what may be a complex application of senior-level concepts at the level of underclassmen who may be majoring in a completely different field. In some cases, this may be a simple task, such as explaining that combustion reactions require oxygen and using the example of flame extinguishers, which blanket the flame with CO2 to demonstrate the importance of oxygen in the process. Another example that would be useful is D-cell batteries as an example of electrochemical cells. These real-world examples also serve as useful pedagogical devices, as they can demonstrate the principle in action in observable manners, giving reference points for the comprehension of students.
Another characteristic that I feel is useful in well-rounded chemistry students is familiarity with primary literature and performing literature searches. In the cases of juniors and seniors, the primary literature is where the student can see application of the concepts they have learned over their career, as well as learn about the process of synthesis of new ideas from experimental results. I plan to include in my upper-level classes at least one assignment concerning research of an article from the primary literature to introduce students to important aspects of academic chemistry (See my example Inorganic Chemistry syllabus). One such assignment would be an assignment in an inorganic chemistry course where an article from recent primary literature would be chosen by the students in order to write a paper on the findings of the paper, and how the paper relates to at least one topic covered in the class. However, in some cases, it may also be important to show how the principles of our class can be applied to industrial settings, as not all chemistry students prefer the academic route. To accommodate them and to provide a general survey of chemical careers, a group presentation assignment could be designed relating a concept covered in class to an industrial process. A similar assignment could also potentially be offered as an extra-credit assignment for lower level courses to stimulate interest in underclassmen and begin the process at an earlier stage.
Finally, one of the most influential courses an undergraduate can take is the Analytical Chemistry class, where students learn not only data analysis techniques for various analytical procedures, but are also intimately introduced to the inner-workings of all the instruments used, from the injection system of the atomic absorption spectrophotometer to the interface of the GC-mass spec system. Learning the minutia of all the major procedures used by an analytical chemist is an arduous task, but it is also one of the most useful learning experiences, as it rolls up the entirety of the chemical education into a single course, tying everything together. This would be my highest expectation for my students, the ability to take everything from a chemical education and to make the big connections, from the basic principles of redox chemistry to the complex workings of a voltammograph, from intermolecular interactions to gas or liquid chromatography. These are the most important aspects of a complete chemical education, the unifying concepts and the real-world applications that inspire excitement and further learning or lead to meaningful application of the student’s learning experience. I can only hope to facilitate such an educational experience and to inspire the next generation of chemists to do great things, much in the way that I have been inspired throughout my own education, starting with Beakman.
Classes I could teach
- General Chemistry
- Quantitative Analysis
- Physical Chemistry
- Biochemistry
- Inorganic Chemistry
- Analytical Chemistry