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I am teaching a one-semester inorganic course for Juniors and Seniors. This is the only inorganic course we have, except for an occasional advanced offering in organometallic chemistry.
I have about 3 days to introduce organometallic chemistry in my class and I would like to use one of the VIPEr literature discussions. They all look interesting and I don't which one to use. Since this is only a very brief introduction to organometallic chemistry, we will only be covering the 18-electron rule, a little bit on carbonyls and hydrides (which I don't consider to be organometallic, but my text does) and pi-complexes.
Suggestions? Thanks.
Here's a recent short communication that caught my eye and might work well given your description. Not necessarily classic organometallic chemistry, but the article does cover carbonyls, electron counting, pi-complexes of nitriles, and even MO intereactions.
"Tungsten(II) Monocarbonyl Bis(acetylacetonate): A Fourteen-Electron Docking Site for 2 Four-Electron Donor Ligand," Andrew B. Jackson, Cynthia K. Schauer, Peter S. White, and Joseph L. Templeton, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 129 (35), 10628 -10629, (2007).
If you do use it and develop some discussion questions to fit your class, I hope you will post it as a new learning object!
In reply to A possible short but "meaty" communication by Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College
Love the paper. It really makes you think about electron counting and pi-complexes, two of the topics I'm covering in my THREE WHOLE DAYS of organometallic chemistry. I wrote some reading questions to help prepare the students for the discussion. Some of them are of the "what is molecule 2a?" type, but a couple are a little meatier. I'll refine them after we discuss them in class and post them to Moodle.
If I post an answer key with it, will casual viewers of this web site have access to it?
Joanne Stewart
In reply to thanks and a question by Joanne Stewart / Hope College
It depends on how you classify the learning object. If it is classified as a problem set, then only users with approved faculty status can view the associated documents (questions, answer keys, etc.). But, if you post this as a literature discussion, then any anonymous user (e.g. students) can see and download the documents that are attached.
One option would be to post the questions and the DOI link to the article as a literature discussion activity (which it is), and then post the questions and answers again as a separate problem set learning object. That way only faculty can view the answers. You can link the two learning objects on the submissions page under "Related Activities."