Chemical engineering faculty members are often asked to teach a core course that they have not taught before. The immediate thought is to come up with some new ideas to revolutionize that core course in ways that will engage students and maximize learning. This paper summarizes the authors' selection of the most effective, innovative approaches reported recently in the literature or discussed at previous conferences for chemical engineering courses that appear earlier in the curriculum, as presented at the 2007 ASEE Summer School for Chemical Engineering Faculty. The challenges associated with particular courses and solutions successfully applied to address those challenges will also be described. Courses covered in this paper include freshman chemical engineering, material and energy balances, fluid mechanics, introductory thermodynamics, and separations.