UNCA Chemistry Department Seminars |
| Date | Speaker | Topic | |
The tenth annual S. Dexter Squibb Lecture series will take place on October 22-23, 2007. The speaker will be John C. Kotz, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Emeritus at SUNY College at Oneonta, and leading author of the popular General Chemistry textbook "Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity". Most recently Dr. Kotz has served as a mentor for the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Team sponsored by the American Chemical Society.
Read Dr. Kotz' detailed biography at the SUNY Oneonta website.
Meetings such as the international and U. S. biennial chemical education conferences draw participants from around the world, and the annual Chemistry Olympiad brings together high school students and their mentors from 68 different countries. And, with the advent of the internet, chemical educators in many countries increasingly interact with one another and share materials. This talk will describe the promise and problems of using U.S. textbooks in other parts of the world, talk about the experience of teaching abroad, and give a mentor’s view of the Olympiad.
An article in Change magazine in 1992 stated that “textbooks have never been more beautiful, sophisticated or useful” and that “the textbook ‘package’ is the premier vehicle for teaching and learning.” It also stated, however, that some students have the attitude that “textbooks are simply utilitarian commodities, to be purchased only when absolutely necessary …”. Little has changed in the intervening 15 years, and the current model of textbook production, pricing, and distribution may be broken. This talk will be a conversation about how we might increase the value-to-price ratio for textbooks and make them more useful to “digital natives.”
All lectures are free and open to the public