3.091 Introduction to solid state chemistry
Since 1969, MIT first-year students have had the option of meeting their chemistry requirement with 3.091 Introduction to Solid State Chemistry. In some years, up to 700 first-year students have been enrolled in the subject, most of them in the fall semester. The instructors are an all-star list of DMSE faculty, primarily Prof. John Wulff (1969-1974), Prof. Gus Witt (19691994), Prof. Don Sadoway (1995-2010), and, since 2011, Prof. Michael Cima. Along the way, thousands of students and hundreds of instructors have contributed to a shared MIT experience.
Although he started as the lead instructor just last fall, Prof. Cima has been working off-and-on with 3.091 since he first came to MIT in the mid-1980s, first as one of the instructors working with Prof. Gus Witt and later with Prof. Don Sadoway.
He notes that today’s 3.091 students learn the same chemical principles as those students who took the class in 1969. However, the lectures now place a greater emphasis on mechanical properties, structural proteins, chemical properties, and chemical structures. Professor Cima has incorporated lectures on polymers, epoxies, solid-state condensed matter and uses material from Prof. Lorna Gibson’s recent book Cellular Materials in Nature and Medicine.
The current class has more demonstrations than in previous years: the last lecture is the famous chocolate and ice cream lecture from 3.022. Other, less delicious, demonstrations include the Prince Rupert drop, a pendulum demo, and a denatured protein demo.
Inspired by Prof. Witt, the last five minutes of lecture are dedicated to presenting an application of the material, like diamonds and batteries. Six videos of these applications are available for online viewing.
A jazz fan, Prof. Cima starts each lecture by playing music, generally from contemporary, northeastern jazz artists, and often at high volume. “The students understand that when the music stops, it’s time to work.” However, “I have a tuxedo, I don’t wear it in class,” he says.
This spring, MIT launched an online learning collaboration, edX, that will allow anyone, anywhere with an internet connection to take classes aimed at a college audience, for personal or professional advancement or for a certificate of completion. A version of 3.091 is available through MITx, the MIT portion of edX, starting in October 2012.
The online version will consist of short screencasts generated on a tablet with narration, similar in form to the Khan Academy videos, interspersed with ten-minute segments drawn from videotaped lectures. After each learning component, students will complete self-assessment exercises. Professor Cima emphasizes that these exercises are more rigorous than a multiple-choice question, and are drawn from the more than forty years of problem sets, quizzes, and exams in 3.091’s archives.
So far, twelve screencasts are completed and a total of thirty to forty will be available in the online course. Producers from edX will polish the final versions. These components were developed after recent MIT students were surveyed on how they best learn and how they use online materials to study.
The screencasts are available to the enrolled MIT students who also have access to recorded lectures on MIT Cable, handouts, material on OCW, and the traditional lectures and recitations as learning resources.
After a busy first year of teaching 3.091, Prof. Cima says, “The biggest thing I learned was the importance of feeling excited about what I’m doing. At first I was teaching the way it had been taught, then I realized I had to make it my own. This year, I’ll be jazzed about everything from the beginning.”
Evolution of 3.091
The current 3.091 subject description:
Basic principles of chemistry and their application to engineering systems. The relationship between electronic structure, chemical bonding, and atomic order. Characterization of atomic arrangements in crystalline and amorphous solids: metals, ceramics, semiconductors, and polymers (including proteins). Topical coverage of organic chemistry, solution chemistry, acid-base equilibria, electrochemistry, biochemistry, chemical kinetics, diffusion, and phase diagrams. Examples from industrial practice (including the environmental impact of chemical processes), from energy generation and storage (e.g., batteries and fuel cells), and from emerging technologies (e.g., photonic and biomedical devices).
is considerably more detailed than the description from Prof. Wulff’s first year teaching the subject, most significantly in the examples from industrial practice and emerging technologies.
Chemical and physical properties of solids as related to bonding, crystal structure, and structural imperfections. Mechanisms of energy changes in chemical reactions and phase transformations.
Starting in 1995, 3.091 has been offered both fall and spring semesters; most recently Dr. David Paul has taught the spring semester. Fall semester lectures meet in 10-250. Students are assigned to one of approximately 20 recitation sections, in which they have more individualized attention and can interact more closely with the instructors, who are drawn from DMSE faculty, grad students, and even some of our very smart undergraduates.