Integrated instrument management information system of Analytical Instrumentation Center of Peking University (web address:http://aic.pku.edu.cn/) is a web system for instrument reservations and management. It consists of the following subsystems:website management, sample reservation, instrument booking, training management, financial management, materials collection and statistics. The information system has diversified function, is user-friendly, and improves significantly the informatization, work efficiency and management level for the instrumentation center.
We discussed the advantages of the management modes of Basic Experiment Teaching Center of Shaanxi Normal University and expound the operation modes of multidisciplinary integrated experimental teaching center. The management modes are beneficial to integration and sharing of the limited laboratory teaching resources, to the promotion of college laboratory instruction, to improving the teaching quality, and to the implement of the teaching philosophy of people-oriented.
This paper mainly introduces the experience and enlightenment learned during my visiting study at the teaching laboratories of chemistry department, Johns Hopkins University. Through the visiting study, we can find that some aspects, such as systematic and comprehensive laboratory safety education, effective laboratory safety management, laboratory and household waste classification approach, network-assisted laboratory teaching mode and laboratory class performance assessment are worth learning.
The achievement of laboratory teaching objectives depends on scientific and rigorous experimental process management. The instruction manual of chemical experiments was formulated and strictly implemented in the fundamental chemistry experiment center of Dalian University of Technology, which strengthens the experimental process management and therefore fosters the students' consciousness of experiment safety and environmental protection. Every experimental section is included in the assessment category in order to train students' good experimental habits, standardize the experimental report writing and improve their innovative thinking ability. These measures effectively monitor and guarantee the quality of laboratory teaching.
An interpretation on the "National Teaching Standard for Higher Chemistry Education for Chemistry Majors" and other suggestions and regulations proposed by 2013-2017 Instructional Committee of Higher Chemistry Education of Ministry of Education was made with emphasis on chemistry laboratory teaching. According to objectives of four kinds of personnel cultivation, the overall design and some implementation suggestions for the laboratory teaching system, teaching contents and teaching levels are suggested. It is of reference value for the future reform of chemistry laboratory teaching for chemistry majors.
A survey about students' laboratory safety and environmental protection consciousness was performed in the freshmen majored in chemistry at Sun Yat-Sen University. Results showed that laboratory safety and environmental protection consciousness of most students' are weak. After analyzing the reasons, we put forward some suggestions. Cultivating students' laboratory safety and environmental protection consciousness should be carried out from several aspects such as emphasizing and regulating from school level, training in laboratory teaching, maintaining good cultural atmosphere of laboratory, as well as providing perfect laboratory safety and environmental protection facilities. We should guide students to actively learn knowledge and skills of laboratory safety and environmental protection in order to develop their good behavior and raise their consciousness.
The laboratory teaching plays more important role for improving the students' scientific literacy according to the progress of the modern society. To provide enough scientific training opportunities, the usual technology and methods used in physical chemistry research field were introduced into the physical chemistry laboratory teaching.
Based on decades of experiences on involving teaching assistants for laboratory teaching, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University developed a complete set of teaching assistant management regulations and guidelines, including recruitment, lab-teaching training, supervising, and performance assessment of teaching assistants, to effectively improve laboratory teaching and to provide a platform which is beneficial to multi-dimensional development as well as future career of undergraduates.
Focusing on the ability cultivation issues of chemistry and chemical engineering undergraduates in laboratory teaching for innovative and entrepreneurial talent cultivating, a new chemistry experiment teaching system was constructed through the interaction of laboratory teaching contents, scientific research and social applications. In this system, experimental skill training, knowledge transferring ability training, innovation and entrepreneurship training were integrated and supported each other. In addition, this system extended from in-class studies to extracurricular practices, and kept four years innovation and entrepreneur training for the undergraduates in a continuous manner. This innovative practice teaching system has already been performed and achieved good teaching effects.
Quantitative Analytical Chemistry Laboratory is a fundamental course for undergraduates of the Chemical Science Base of the College of Science in China Agricultural University. The teaching hours were changed from 64 to 32 in the new curriculum, and the corresponding teaching contents were reduced. This paper discusses the way to combine the "teaching suggestion content of the chemistry experiments for students in chemistry majors" and training objectives within the framework of the new curriculum. In the case of less lab-teaching hours, the lab-teaching contents were reasonably selected and arranged into an integrated lab-teaching system. At the same time, the evaluation method of the experimental was reformed, and the performance of the new evaluation system was discussed.
To fulfill the education goal of "enhancing the base, focusing on capability development, and cultivating creativity", the College of Chemistry & Molecular Engineering at Peking University has developed an open, integrated and diversified laboratory teaching system. This system integrated basic operations, comprehensive experiments, and research projects based training into a curriculum. With each teaching mode serving for a specific teaching objective, the whole curriculum provides a complete training for the ultimate goal. Efforts have been made to facilitate the teaching-learning interaction and the motivate exploration interests of students. The professional development of students improved greatly based on the advantageous scientific settings of the college.
With the fast development of theoretical chemistry methodologies and computer hardware and software technologies, computational chemistry has become more and more imperative in chemical science. Accordingly, we have initiated "Computational Chemistry Experiments" course based on "Introductory Computational Chemistry" course developed in the Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University since 2013, to provide basic training and computational chemistry practices for undergraduate students. The popular quantum chemistry software Gaussian is used as the major tool in the course. We focus on the exploratory feature of computational chemistry, creating initial structures and optimizing geometries, to provide fundamental training for students to comprehend the difference of traditional experimental chemistry and modern computational chemistry. Systematic research training is offered to develop the creative thinking capacity of students in using computational chemistry methods in chemistry education and research.
The ability of scientific inquiry is one of the important abilities of undergraduate students. We have been thinking and exploring to cultivate students' scientific research ability in the course of laboratory teaching. In recent years, we had carried out persistently reform and practice to the laboratory teaching content and the teaching method in organic chemistry, for example, introduction to the frontier of scientific research, exploring the abnormal phenomena of the experiment, organization of experiment discussion, and carrying out the extracurricular research experiments. The above measures can greatly stimulate the students' interest in learning. Their abilities to think, observe, analyze and solve problems were fully developed. The students' ability of scientific inquiry had been cultivated in multiple aspects. The above measures have effectively promoted the improvement of teaching quality of organic chemistry laboratory course, and also supported the training objectives of high-quality innovative talents in chemistry.
Failed experiments occur frequently in laboratory. How the laboratory teacher actively and effectively deal with the failed experiments and guide students plays an important role in the cultivation of undergraduates' creativity. If he loses on the swings, he may win on the roundabouts. We show how teacher guide and enlighten the undergraduate students to get the inspiration and learn from the failed experiments by two examples of Chemistry Laboratory of undergraduates. Let the students find problems with curiosity, analyze problems, and solve the problem in the "experiment-failure-improvement-experiment" process based on relevant knowledge and rules. The teaching and learning efficiency of laboratory class is significantly improved. Undergraduates not only have a profound discussion and analysis of experimental results, but also receive effective training in scientific research literacy and quality.
