These two courses are the two-semesters organic lectures offered to sophomores matriculating a BS degree in the physical science area. These two courses carry the same themes as my CHEM 321 and 322 courses, with emphasis on learning and understanding organic chemistry concepts followed by applications to problem solving.
To stimulate a more interactive learning environment, I introduce discussions and debates concerning key reaction mechanisms and concepts among students in my lectures to make them think about and better understand the material. With regard to the debate exercises, I at times associate a specific concept or reaction mechanism with a student's name and then have this student defend and explain his or her views on the material in class. Since these debate exercises are conducted very informally and at times in a humorous setting, students often do not hesitate to share their thoughts and learn from one another through these discussions.
My roles in these sessions are to lead the discussions and sometimes direct or rephrase the questions to ensure that the class remains focused on the learning experience. It has been my experience that most students learn more efficiently through these sorts of interactive environments, especially in the practice of pushing electrons in organic reaction mechanisms.
One of the challenges in conducting these sorts of discussion-based lectures is time constraints, which require the additional review sections to cover our syllabus. Nevertheless, I do believe that this approach is a much more effective way of teaching Organic chemistry and students tend to retain knowledge.
Evidence of my committee to undergraduate teaching is documented in my award of the Glennan teaching fellowship which provided me with $6500 to develop my CHEM 321 and CHEM 322 courses. In addition, I was nominated the excellence in teaching in 2002 by the undergraduate student government while teaching my CEM 321/322 courses. Furthermore, I was commissioned by the Prentice Hall publisher to co-author a powerpoint CD resource for instructor for the Organic Chemistry textbook by Paula Bruice, 4 th Edition. This CD is distributed to all instructors teaching organic chemistry with the Bruice book.
