With apologies to Bob Dylan...

Come gather 'round snaklings

My name is Jorge Torres and I am a graduate student at Miami University working with Dr. Ellen Yezierski in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. I am pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry focusing on chemistry education research (CER) in Inorganic Chemistry. As part of my dissertation research, I am conducting a study on the inorganic chemistry curriculum to identify both the stated and the enacted teaching and learning goals.

I can’t believe that the only thing left in my foundation inorganic course is the final final exam. (No the second final isn’t a typo. I give an assessment of key concepts exam and an ACS Exam.) I’m sure that I’m more excited about these exams than my students. A few of them are eager to prove what they know. I’m excited to see what they’ve learned (and I’m even more excited to see how the Foundations of Inorganic Chemistry exam from the ACS Exams Institute is functioning)!

The VIPEr site now has a large number of literature discussion assignments – learning objects in which students read a research article and answer questions before coming to a class discussion.

While at the ACS meeting in Denver I was simply in awe at just how amazing this community is. The talks were excellent. It is certainly a privilege to have a front row seat, but I do wish Chip Nataro would stop taking me away from my perch during his talks. Our poster sessions were terrific. I wish I could have gotten to all of the posters but Nancy Williams decided it was best I stayed at our poster.

While in Denver, I missed two days of lecture for my sophomore inorganic class. Normally I would have just skipped them, but I ended up with some pretty tough time constraints and was left in a pinch of really needing to cover some material. I decided that I couldn’t just skip the classes, but I also knew that attempting to make them up outside the normally scheduled time would be next to impossible. So, I decided to hold class remotely.

It's hard to believe that we are a little over a week away from the ACS meeting in Denver. As always, VIPEr will be well represented at the meeting. You can get the full details for our technical program from ACS, but I thought it was worth giving you a brief synopsis.

We kick things off Sunday morning with 8 talks on coordination chemistry hosted by Chris Hamaker.

Some of you have already taken advantage of the hard work you've done this semester to create cool symmetry and MO problems, and shared the fruits of your labor with the community as part of our second Community Challenge!

For those who have been meaning to do so, but last week just got too busy, please feel free to submit something! We'll publish the collection of submissions this Friday, but we're publishing the LOs as they come in!

The Journal of Chemical Education has released a trio of articles in the past couple of days that should be of interest to inorganic chemists.  Two were highlighted as the ACS Editor's Choice selection for Tues, March 3 and Wed, March 4.