Context Is Everything! So, coming back to the gray-hair issue that I mentioned in last week’s post, I have been teaching for long enough that sometimes I need to take a step back and remind myself that most of my students don’t know very much chemistry, especially not the chemistry of their day-to-day lives. This … Continue reading Has It Really Been Six Years?: Part II
Has It Really Been Six Years?: Part I
I have a photo of me and my oldest son taped to a shelf in my office. In the picture, I’m holding him up and we’re wearing matching red bandanas. He was about 3-years-old at the time (he's 13 now), and I had a full head of bright red hair. But today, it’s almost all … Continue reading Has It Really Been Six Years?: Part I
Emergent Remote Teaching
Here in Pennsylvania, class cancellations due to snow are the most challenging part of the spring semester. Days before our college closed due to the pandemic, I joked with a colleague that this could be the first semester without any snow days. Little did I know that within days, I would have a much bigger … Continue reading Emergent Remote Teaching
Online Teaching with Karty’s Text and Smartwork
In my previous post, I wrote about the benefits of teaching organic chemistry with a mechanistic organization. Now, with the COVID-19 virus crossing our country and universities going online in response, I’d like to share how I am using Karty's textbook, bundled with Smartwork’s online homework system, to move my organic chemistry course online. Several years ago, when the first edition of … Continue reading Online Teaching with Karty’s Text and Smartwork
Teaching Mechanistically Online
Like many other faculty, I’ve found myself with two days to switch my organic chemistry II course to an online format. Luckily, I have taught online classes before, although not this particular one, so I was familiar with many of the tools. Here are a few thoughts that I’m keeping central to how I teach … Continue reading Teaching Mechanistically Online
Maintaining Pace As We Evolve Online: Lesson #1
Let me preface this post by saying that I believe all chemistry is best learned in a kinesthetic, interactive, face-to-face environment; where faculty and students can synchronously engage in a philosophical debate over electrostatic attractions, reaction energetics, and product probability. Don’t even get me started on the laboratory experience. You’ve got concerns about academic rigor? … Continue reading Maintaining Pace As We Evolve Online: Lesson #1
Shifting to an Online Organic Chemistry Course
Like many of you, my organic chemistry course has been thrown off the rails with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With these changes, we are faced with questions on how to deliver content and assess student learning remotely. How will we give exams, such as the ACS exam? What about lab? How can we walk the … Continue reading Shifting to an Online Organic Chemistry Course
Choosing Good YouTube Videos to Complement Your Curriculum
I often hear students say that they didn’t understand a topic, so they found a video on YouTube for it. Of course they did: YouTube is a fabulous resource that’s available in the middle of the night when they are taking a break at work, or at any other time they need. However, the problem … Continue reading Choosing Good YouTube Videos to Complement Your Curriculum
Eliminating Preconceived Fears
Organic chemistry has always been the course you would hear rumors about “breaking students” or “crushing students’ medical-field dreams.” This preconceived fear creates a learning barrier for students before they even enter the classroom. I’ve personally known good students with great potential who’ve given up on their future careers just because of organic chemistry. Our … Continue reading Eliminating Preconceived Fears
A Mechanistic Organization
I have been using Karty’s Organic Chemistry: Principles and Mechanisms textbook since the first edition was published in 2014, and it has made a dramatic improvement in my two-semester organic chemistry lecture. After teaching organic chemistry for two decades employing typical organic textbooks, which all organized topics by functional groups, Karty’s textbook was a breath … Continue reading A Mechanistic Organization