One of the biggest (and sometimes the most difficult) decisions to make when teaching a course is the textbook choice. Knowing if you made the right decision can be tough to tell. Well, last semester I got some unsolicited feedback from students that put my mind at ease about deciding to adopt Joel Karty's Principles … Continue reading Karty’s Method Stands Alone, and With It So Can Your Students
The First Semester: A Slower Pace Wins the Race
In my last post, Results of Four Years of Teaching the Mechanism, I talked about the increasing ACS Organic Exam scores I have observed in my students over the previous four years of using the Karty approach. As I am preparing for the 5th year and the first time using the second edition this Fall, … Continue reading The First Semester: A Slower Pace Wins the Race
What’s in a NOM? Nomenclature that Actually Makes Sense.
One aspect of Karty’s text that surprised me when I began using the book was the separation of nomenclature into individual sections. My previous experience, going all the way back to my days as a student, was to have the introduction to naming tucked into other material, usually served along side the properties of alkanes, … Continue reading What’s in a NOM? Nomenclature that Actually Makes Sense.
Floppity or Floop?
There are a lot of research articles, opinions, blog posts, and conversations about new teaching methods nowadays, and there are a lot of great ideas floating around, but I’m just going to go right out there and say that the prospect of flipping my organic chemistry class terrified me as much as I thought it … Continue reading Floppity or Floop?
Time Well Spent
Teaching a mechanistically organized course has many benefits. For example, I am able to spend less class time on nomenclature. This semester, I assigned nomenclature “chapters” 1-3 for the students to read outside of class, arranging them among chapters 1–10 of the text. This meant that I spent only 25% of lecture time explaining nomenclature. … Continue reading Time Well Spent
How the Ten Elementary Steps Unified My Course
For years I told my students they shouldn’t merely memorize a list of reactions. But what were my actions really telling them? In the last textbook I used, the alkene chapter began with nomenclature, then covered Markovnikov addition of H-X and water, halogenation and halohydrin formation, and ended with hydroboration/oxidation. The next chapter that covered … Continue reading How the Ten Elementary Steps Unified My Course
Cooler Temps, Shorter Days, and the Start of Organic I
I have been teaching organic chemistry for a long time (several years ago I had a wonderful student who pointed out that I taught her dad!). The beginning of first semester of organic chemistry is always clunky and sometimes even painful. How does one make it through the first class without going through every detail … Continue reading Cooler Temps, Shorter Days, and the Start of Organic I
Starting the Semester with My Biology Students in Mind
Like so many other organic courses, at my school approximately two-thirds of organic students are biology majors. Of these, most have some sort of pre-health professional aspiration. Because of this audience alongside my chemistry and biochemistry majors, I come to my organic classroom (as I know many of you do!) with two sets of course … Continue reading Starting the Semester with My Biology Students in Mind
When Should Resonance be Taught?
In my textbook, resonance is presented rather extensively in Chapter 1 (“Atomic and Molecular Structure”), ultimately teaching students how to draw all resonance structures of a given species. I like to teach resonance to that depth early in the course because it reinforces topics that are vital to student success throughout the entire year of … Continue reading When Should Resonance be Taught?
POGIL and Mechanisms are Natural Allies
Choosing a textbook is always an important part of class preparation, but when using Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) with a group of students of mixed academic and reading abilities, the choice is perhaps even more important. POGIL is an evidence-based teaching/learning method used across the country. Students work in structured groups to complete … Continue reading POGIL and Mechanisms are Natural Allies