Quantum Chemistry and Thermodynamics/Statistical Mechanics Course Materials
These course materials were designed by Rob Berger for flipped-classroom implementations of undergraduate physical chemistry courses at Western Washington University.
Rob covers quantum for ~11 weeks and stat/mech thermo for ~9 weeks, combining for two 10-week quarters. Students take quantum first, so the stat mech coverage assumes some familiarity with quantum models. (There is also a third quarter of p-chem at WWU that mainly covers equilibrium and kinetics, but Rob’s materials for that course are not yet as extensive.)
Typically, students watch about two videos per week, depending how content-rich the videos are. In class, there is usually a brief recap of key points in each video with opportunities for students to ask questions, followed by in-class group problem-solving activities or the above computer simulation activities. The in-class problem sets are not included here, but Rob would be happy to discuss and/or share those, too.
Each of the following PDF files contain descriptions of key concepts, learning targets, and success criteria.
Learning Progressions for Quantum Mechanics and associated YouTube playlist
Learning Progressions for Thermo and Stat Mech and associated YouTube playlist
Rob has also designed five interactive computer simulation lessons (available at https://wp.wwu.edu/bergerr/teaching/) that aim to connect the equations that students see in class to pictorial intuition. So far, four of the lessons relate to quantum topics, and the other to stat mech. The simulations are coded in Mathematica, but they can be opened and manipulated with the freely-downloadable Wolfram cdf player (https://www.wolfram.com/player/). Rob uses these simulations and the accompanying questions as in-class activities, but they are intended to be clear enough that students could work through them independently outside of class. Rob would be happy to share written solutions to these activities on request.