With these goals in mind: To increase general awareness of nanotechnology and science future among students, and to bring more students to nano-research areas.
Dear Majid ,
Thank You for your wide concern about spreading awareness of nanotechnology among the new students.As you have asked the possible way of teaching nanotechnology,It may a good option to run an elective course for first year students as because it may be a subject of interest for some students not for all.
But a basic course on nanotechnology may be merged with main stream course to grab an attention towards nanotechnology as well as to widen a path for interdisciplinary research.
Thanking a lot
-Sayantan
Majid
It is good to teach Nanoscience to all university students as early as possible in their career is good. However, to understand Nano science the students need to have good background in Physics, Chemistry and Material Science. The first year University students may not have that background. Once they have that background they can be taught an overview course. That will make the students aware of what is involved and what are the possibilities of nanotechnology. That hopefully will excite some of the students to become Nano scientists.
Thanks for your contribution, introductory course is important but should be designed well to open students minds on various solutions may offered by nanoscience.
There is a concern because most academic staff are lack of educational or soft skills and this issue is not when teaching new and cutting edge science but also with classical courses.
Majid
It is for the institution to take care of the quality of the faculty they employ and train them appropriately for their requirements. These days a large number of resources are available and there is no justification for any faculty to not to acquire the necessary proficiency in a particular subject that he/she is teaching.
When it comes to new technologies such as Nano excellent web resources are available. Let me know if you are interested.
I have seen your good uploaded power point, but it will be more helpful, if you can highlight on specialized online-courses in nano-science for first year students,
http://nano4me.org/educators
Register and you will be able to download good number of resources.
Dear Majid,
Its better to Merge the Nanoscience with other science courses for the first years because teaching nanoscience as a separate course at this level is very challenging. Although nanoscience has roots in basic sciences, it requires higher level of thinking based on a wide knowledge base. It is important to understand how things work in the nanoscale world and the nanoscale world is alien to students. Electrons, atoms are too small to be seen, their interactions resemble nothing in everyday life. This is the world where quantum mechanics, electromagnetic and thermodynamic forces govern. There is nothing that students can assemble or tear apart with their bare hands in order to learn how these rules work.
I think these challenges could be eliminated by designing good course, where topics and issues are chosen carefully. Also, it should be directed towards what faculty/department's aims. So, if one of the strategic goals is utilizing graphene for electronics industry, then the general course should cover graphene physics, synthesis, handling, and related characterizing techniques (Raman, Optical microscope, ...).
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