Three Pitt Chemical Engineering Professors Accept Teaching Honors for Department

PITTSBURGH, April 14 -- It's not that the three University of Pittsburgh chemical and petroleum engineering professors didn't want the Carnegie Science Center's Award for Excellence in Science Teaching—they just didn't want to be singled out.

The award, presented April 4 to Alan Russell, professor and chairman of the department; John Murphy, visiting research professor; and Robert Enick, professor, recognized the sweeping changes their entire department had undergone in its teaching philosophy.

"I see this more as an award for the whole department, because it's really a commitment by all 23 faculty members to radically change the way we teach," said Russell. "The Carnegie Science Center chose the three of us for the award because that's the limitation they put on the nomination process."

Teachers in the department have virtually abandoned the traditional lecture method in favor of an active learning approach, recently recommended by the National Research Council as the optimal way to teach science.

During three years of research into new methods of teaching, followed by planning and training, the department redesigned the entire engineering curriculum to incorporate media-enhanced lectures, computer-assisted instruction, and group collaboration.

Central to the changes is the Frank L. Moser Learning Center, dedicated last fall, in which all chemical engineering classes are now taught. The FMLC has state-of-the-art audio-visual systems, interactive computers, and seating configurations that enable the entire class or teams to work collaboratively on problems or projects.

A major component of the active learning pedagogy is teamwork, and the FMLC was designed to facilitate group interaction. Each student work center, large enough to accommodate two, two- or three-person teams, is equipped with two computer monitors and keyboards, with the hard drives stored in an adjacent room to alleviate background noise. The computers are configured so that the instructor, at the master console, can display any individual monitor's work with the whole class, or project it on a screen at the front of the room.

The changes have brought rave reviews from Pitt's own students, as well as from colleagues at other universities studying the FMLC for their own schools. The national engineering accreditation body gave the chemical and petroleum engineering department its highest possible accreditation recommendation for the new program.

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Editors--Full color photographs (jpeg format) of the Frank Mosier Learning Center in use are available at the University of Pittsburgh's News and Information ftp site: ftp://ftp.univ-relations.pitt.edu/mosier