This in-class activity was designed for a Chemical Communications course with second-year students. It is the second part of a two-week segment in which students learn how to use ChemDraw (or similar drawing software to create digital drawings of molecules).
This course is an introduction to the field of inorganic chemistry. The student is expected to be well-versed in the material covered in general chemistry, as this will serve as the foundation and launching point for the material to be covered this semester. The course will begin by examining the properties of the elements, and expand outward to consider chemical bonding and the electronic factors that govern metal reactivity. These factors include acid-base theory, thermodynamics, electrochemistry and redox, and coordination chemistry.
This Learning Object came to being sort of (In-)organically on the first day of my sophomore level intro to inorganic course. As I always do, I started the course with the IC Top 10 First Day Activity. (https://www.ionicviper.org/classactivity/ic-top-10-first-day-activity). One of the pieces of that In class activity asks students- novices at Inorganic Chemistry- to sort the articles from the Most Read Articles from Inorganic Chemistry into bins of the various subdisciplines of Inorganic Chemistry.
This is a flipped classroom module that covers the concepts of quantum numbers, and radial and angular nodes. This activity is designed to be done at the beginning of the typical first quarter/first semester general chemistry course (for an atoms first approach; if instructors use a traditional course structure this unit is likely done towards the middle/end of the first quarter/semester). Students will be expected to have learned the following concepts prior to completing this activity:
a) quantization of energy in the atom and the Bohr model of the atom;
This is a basic introduction to Enemark-Feltham that can be used in conjunction with any literature that has Iron nitrosyls in it. I made this as a follow up to the work that came ouf of the 2018 VIPEr workshop in UM-Dearborn.
This is a flipped classroom activity that is intended for use in a college-level first semester/first quarter general chemistry course, and aims to provide a real-world context for thermochemistry concepts by focusing on the problem of producing hydrogen fuel in a sustainable manner. Current industrial production of hydrogen relies on extracting hydrogen from hydrocarbon molecules. Producing hydrogen in this manner brings about the obvious problem of relying of fossil fuels for a “sustainable” fuel.
The Interactive Syllabus is a web-based survey delivery of syllabus content to your students prior to the first day of classes. The web link below explains many of the features and advantages, but in my opinion some of the best benefits are (1) students actually engage with the content on the syllabus in meaningful ways, (2) it saves class time on the first day, and (3) can encourage students to share questions/concerns they may not have been as eager to share in person.
The survey is built on the qualtrics platform, but could be adapted for other programs.
Rules for quantum numbers are confusing but not arbitrary. They are based on wave mathmatics, and once laid out properly are symmetric and beautiful. Within four animation-clicks of the first slide of this PowerPoint Presentation, this beauty will unfold. I do not exaggerate to say, faculty members will be agape and students will say, "Why didn't you show us this before." No other presentation shows in as elegant a way the relationship between 1) n, l and ml, 2) the ordering of orbitals in hydrogen-like atoms, and 3) the ordering of orbitals in the periodic table (along with
VIPEr to the rescue!
The first year as a faculty member is extremely stressful and getting through each class day to day is a challenge. This collection was developed with new faculty teaching general chemistry in mind pulling together resources on the VIPEr site to refer back to as the semester drags along. There are some nice in-class activities, lab experiments, literature discussions, and problem sets for use in the general chemistry course. There are also some nice videos and graphics that could be used to spark interest in your students.
This web resource is a diverse list of VIPEr forum topics about teaching that may be of interest to new faculty assigned to teach general chemistry for the first time. It was created as part of a larger collection to help new faculty get started in the classroom.