I am now four weeks into teaching one of my favorite classes at Hope. The official name is Structure, Dynamics, and Synthesis II, but it is known to all as SUPERCHEM (cape not required)! The subject matter is symmetry, group theory, and computational chemistry. VIPEr has a lot of great learning objects (LOs) for Superchem, many based on interesting real examples from the literature. In fact, there are so many that it’s a little overwhelming to figure out which ones to use.

But VIPEr has a solution for that. It’s a relatively new learning object called “Collections.” A Collection may be a thematic group of learning objects, or several learning objects that a user has selected for a specific course, or a list of the learning objects that were developed for one of our workshops.

I put together a collection for Superchem called Symmetry, Group Theory, and Computational Chemistry. The collection contains the titles, learning goals, and links to VIPEr learning objects that I love and have used in teaching Superchem. You can browse through the learning goals and see if there are some that may work for you. They’re not all super advanced--several provide interesting real world practice for assigning point groups.

I would also encourage you to add comments to the bottom of my Collection if you have contributed or discovered LOs on this topic since I put it together. LOs are living, breathing things and I will happily update my Collection with your suggestions.

We think that Collections have the potential to help VIPEr users sift through our “bewildering array of content” and find great learning objects they can use. If you have a set of LOs you use in teaching a class, we invite you to share them with the VIPEr community as a Collection.