Colored Note Cards as a Quick and Cheap Substitute for Clickers

Submitted by Chris Bradley / Mount St. Mary's University on Tue, 07/17/2012 - 10:23
Description

For many years I have resisted using clickers, mainly because at our university there is no standard universal clicker. I wanted to keep student costs as low as possible but also desired the type of live feedback during a lecture that clicker questions can provide. In both my general chem. (200-300 students) and upper division courses (50-75 students), I now pass out 4 or 5 colored notecards on the first day of class and make sure everyone has one of each color.

Writing assignment series related to topics discussed in organometallic chemistry - Assignment 2 Literature Highlights

Submitted by Abby O'Connor / The College of New Jersey on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 15:15
Description

Searching and reading the literature is an important tool in teaching organometallic chemistry. This overall project focuses on the improving students' writing skills and to begin to think critically about articles in the literature through a series of different writing assignments. This project is used in a semester long course on organometallics and reaction mechanisms. The first assignment (this LO) is a summary, the second is related to the NSF highlight, and the third is a literature critique.

Distinguishing Between Metal Catalysts for Inner- and Outer-Sphere C-H Bond Functionalization

Submitted by David R. Weinberg / Colorado Mesa University on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 14:13
Description

This activity is meant to teach students about the types of homogeneous transition metal C-H bond functionalization catalysts. Before class, the students will read a short discussion of inner- and outer-sphere C-H bond functionalization catalysts. Then they will use their knowledge of transition metal oxidation states and ligands in order to assess whether a variety of catalysts react via inner- or outer-sphere pathways.

Palladium-Catalyzed Biaryl Coupling Using PEPPSI Under Aqueous Microwave Conditions

Submitted by Gerard Rowe / University of South Carolina Aiken on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 11:53
Description

This is a lab that gives students a chance to use a catalyst to perform "green" chemistry.  Specifically, they will make one of the new generation of palladium cross-coupling catalysts called PEPPSI, which is a highly active, water soluble catalyst and use it in a Suzuki coupling reaction.  Student groups of 2 or 3 will synthesize an NHC ligand, incorporate it into a metal compound, and then perform catalysis in an aqueous microwave reaction using a variety of different reaction conditions in order to determine the optimal catalytic system.

Metal MACiE Database

Submitted by Anthony L. Fernandez / Merrimack College on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 11:21
Description

As a non-bioinorganic chemist, I am always looking for resources to help me teach bioinorganic chemistry in both my sophomore-level and advanced inorganic chemistry courses.  The "metalloproteome" was the subject of an article in the December 12, 2011 issue of C&E News ("Merging Metals into Proteomics: Tackling the Systematic Study of Metalloproteins").  In this article, the author mentions a new database, called Metal MACiE, of metals in metalloenzymes.

Energy Nugget: Methane to Methanol

Submitted by Hilary Eppley / DePauw University on Thu, 01/12/2012 - 05:40
Description

This learning object was developed with a lot of help from B. Scott Williams from the Keck Science Department of the Claremont Colleges for my junior/senior level course in 2009.   This object is a literature discussion on the topic, but Scott and I hope to add a 5-slides about learning object to go with it shortly.   The primary literature article used for the discussion is “Characterization of a Rhodium(I) sigma-Methane Complex in Solution,” by Wesley H. Bernskoetter, Cynthia K. Schauer, Karen I.

Metals and Life by Eleanor Crabb and Elaine Moore

Submitted by Amanda Reig / Ursinus College on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 08:27
Description

This appears to be an excellent introductory text for bioinorganic chemistry.  The authors assume no previous biochemistry knowledge and only a cursory understanding of concepts in inorganic chemistry is required.  Any student who has completed general chemistry should find most of the book readily accessible. 

Student Literature-Based Organometallic Lecture

Submitted by Jeffrey Rood / Elizabethtown College on Mon, 01/03/2011 - 14:42
Description
I taught an advanced inorganic chemistry course for the first time this past fall. I focused strictly on organometallic chemistry and we used Spessard and Miessler's book. Because this book is focused on transition metal organometallics, I wanted the students to appreciate some of the organometallic chemistry of the s- and p-block (and zinc). Students worked in pairs (the class size was 12) and had most of the semester to research the literature and develop a 40-50 minute lecture. I also had them develop homework questions and an in class activity to help engage the other students.

The organometallic hypertext book

Submitted by Madeleine Schultz / Queensland University of Technology on Mon, 09/06/2010 - 06:11
Description

I am sure most people already use this but I always refer to students to the Organometallic hypertext book. It has excellent explanations of topics such as back-donation in organometallic complexes.

http://www.ilpi.com/organomet/

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