Students develop process skills through repeated practice of data interpretation, problem solving, and critical thinking. The primary literature provides a rich source of data and application problems to engage students in this practice within the context of chemistry content knowledge. However, most existing classroom activities based on the…

A collaborative learning module for teaching protein mass spectrometry has been developed to overcome common obstacles to incorporating the modern topic of biological mass spectrometry into the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Protein mass spectrometry data is provided to eliminate the need for expensive instrumentation, and an instructor's…

The tutorials of a second-year undergraduate organic chemistry course have been modified to include a retrosynthetic exercise in conjunction with a Molecule of the Week (MoW) challenge. In contrast to the original tutorial assignments in the course, which primarily focused on completing simple reaction roadmaps, the new tutorials place a heavier…

Problem solving and critical thinking are buzzwords used in defining general chemistry learning goals. Assessments including well-structured homework, quizzes, and exams are designed and incorporated to build these skills. Our research expanded upon the types of assessments and analyzed the effect of writing assignments for promoting problem…

Prior to the recycling process, raising awareness of plastic waste impact, e.g., polluting oceans worldwide, is undoubtedly a first attempt to tackle this pandemic environmental issue. With this in mind, the presented practical session is an effort to entice an interdisciplinary audience of science undergraduates toward a sustainable future. The…

Organic Chemistry is a required course for programs in chemistry, biology, and many health science careers. It has historically been considered a highly challenging course with significant failure rates. As with many science disciplines, the teaching of Organic Chemistry has traditionally focused on unstructured exposition-centered delivery of…

This paper describes assignments that have been implemented in a General Chemistry I course to promote science literacy. This course was chosen in particular because it reaches a broad audience, which includes nonscience majors. The assignment series begins with several discussions and tasks to develop information literacy, in which students find…

This article describes the use of a progressive paper in a capstone course to develop students' writing skills. A progressive paper is one that students write one section at a time: as they add each new section, they go back and revise the previous parts based on actionable feedback from the instructor. In this course, the progressive paper takes…

Since 2002, a multidisciplinary program has been used to encourage science students to build on their chemical knowledge and to appreciate how it applies to the world around them. The program is interactive and instills a new set of core learning skills that are often underrepresented in undergraduate curricula, namely, cooperative learning,…

Organic chemistry students typically struggle with the retrosynthetic approach to solving synthesis problems because most textbooks present the chemistry grouped by "reactions of the functional group". In contrast, the retrosynthetic approach requires the student to envision "reactions that yield the functional group". A second challenge is the…