Teaching

Dr. Bowers is interested in enhancing STEM pedagogy by using research and other transformative faculty/student co-learning methods as teaching tools, developing hybrid courses that use several types of student-centered learning approaches and authentic assessment in the classroom, incorporating timely real-world examples and reflective experiences into his courses, incorporating career skills in the curriculum, and using assessment-driven decision making to innovate chemistry curricula.  Dr. Bowers has received multiple teaching awards and is continuously experimenting with new approaches in the classroom and instructional laboratory.  He was actively involved in the Project Kaleidoscope Upstate New York Regional Network, where he was a member and co-chair of the steering committee and the organizer of the Fall 2013 Network Meeting.  Bowers also collaborated with two colleagues in his final year at Alfred University to establish the Alfred STEM Teaching Information Resource, an on-campus network of faculty interested in exploring alternative STEM teaching strategies.  After moving to St. Mary's College of Maryland, Bowers served as a member of the Teaching and Learning Workgroup in his first year before transitioning into the Chemistry and Biochemistry leadership team for the Council for Undergraduate Research Curriculum Transformation Project, an NSF/CUR sponsored curricular transformation program the St. Mary's Chemistry and Biochemistry and Psychology departments were awarded in Fall 2017.

Books and Book Chapters

Understanding Chemistry through Cars

You can almost feel the car itself anticipating its dance around the racetrack or down the dragstrip as the engine growls and pops and all your senses respond to becoming immersed in the exhaust vapors, smells, and sounds of raw speed and excitement.  The secret is that these are also the sights, sounds, and smells of chemistry!

The car is a great example of an every-day device with an abundance of chemistry hiding in plain sight. In fact, almost everything in a car can be described from a chemical perspective.  Our original book, UnderstandingChemistry through Cars, guides novice chemists and car enthusiasts in learning basic chemical principles in an engaging context, marketing chemistry through the automobile for the first time. It also supports upper-level chemists in synthesizing knowledge gained over a chemistry curriculum and seeing how it can manifest in the real world.

This book provides an overview of chemistry in relation to cars. Various topics are discussed including the ideal gas law, materials chemistry, thermochemistry, solution chemistry, mass transport, polymerization, light/matter interactions, and oxidation and reduction.

The book incorporates expected learning outcomes at the beginning of each section, detailed and easy-to-follow example problems, appendices reviewing basic chemical topics, and suggestions on how to use the resource in upper-level courses. Ancillary materials, such as a Twitter account, allow readers to explore the latest in the world of car chemistry, ask questions, and interact directly with the authors and other experts.

Teaching Philosophy

• Provide future consumers of chemistry the tools they need to form educated opinions on current and future chemically-oriented issues.

• Transition upper level students from consumers of chemistry to practitioners of chemistry.

• Integrate student-centered and transformative faculty/student co-learning techniques such as research in the undergraduate educational experience.

• Provide students an authentic research experience in the classroom.

• Integrate professional skills and alumni networking in undergraduate coursework.

• Help all students to develop and practice effective problem solving strategies and skills.

• Involve non-traditional assessment methods in the classroom, particularly those that stress written and oral dissemination of results to better prepare students for evaluation in their professional career.

• Provide young chemists with the tools to succeed in an interdisciplinary community, particularly how to be a good collaborator.

• Inspire students to pursue careers in chemistry by making chemistry fun.