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

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

Mechanism Problems with Numerous Teaching Moments

Each year, as my students complete Chapter 8, I find tremendous value in assigning a handful of written mechanism problems that not only challenge students, but also reinforce important lessons about mechanisms that we learned throughout Chapters 7 and 8. This year, I assigned the following two mechanism problems (not found in Chapter 7 or … Continue reading Mechanism Problems with Numerous Teaching Moments