Ideas to consider for new chemical engineering educators: Freshman and sophomore level courses

So, you are going to teach a core chemical engineering course next term that you have not taught before. It's time to come up with some new ideas to revolutionize that core course in ways that will amaze students and maximize learning, right? Or perhaps the maxim about "an hour in the library is worth a month in the laboratory" might be meaningful in the context of teaching. This paper summarizes the authors' selection of the most effective, innovative approaches reported recently in the literature or discussed at previous conferences for lower-division core courses in chemical engineering, as presented at the 2007 ASEE Summer School for Chemical Engineering Faculty. The challenges associated with particular courses and solutions successfully applied to address those challenges will also be described. Courses covered in this paper include introductory courses for freshmen, material and energy balances, fluid mechanics, introductory thermodynamics, and separations.