In a world facing complex global challenges, citizens around the world need to be able to engage in scientific reasoning and argumentation supported by evidence. Chemistry educators can support students in developing these skills by providing opportunities to justify how and why phenomena occur, including on assessments. However, little is known…

The concept of delocalization (i.e., resonance) is fundamental concept in organic chemistry but essential learning outcomes (LOs) have not previously been proposed nor has there been an analysis of how resonance is taught, despite indications in the literature that students have many non-canonical ideas about the concepts. To address this deficit,…

The goal of the present work is to extend an online reaction categorization task as a research instrument to a formative assessment tool of students' knowledge organization for organic chemistry reactions. Herein, we report our findings from administering the task with undergraduate students in Organic Chemistry II, at a large, research intensive…

This study investigated students' successes, strategies, and common errors in their answers to questions that involved the electron-pushing (curved arrow) formalism (EPF), part of organic chemistry's language. We analyzed students' answers to two question types on midterms and final exams: (1) draw the electron-pushing arrows of a reaction step,…

In chemistry, novices and experts use mental models to simulate and reason about sub-microscopic processes. Animations are thus important tools for learning in chemistry to convey reaction dynamics and molecular motion. While there are many animations available and studies showing the benefit of learning from animations, there are also limitations…

We developed an online learning module called ''Organic Mechanisms: Mastering the Arrows'' to help students learn part of organic chemistry's language--the electron-pushing formalism. The module guides students to learn and practice the electron-pushing formalism using a combination of interactive videos, questions with instant feedback, and…

Organic synthesis problems require the solver to integrate knowledge and skills from many parts of their courses. Without a well-defined, systematic method for approaching them, even the strongest students can experience difficulties. Our research goal was to identify the most successful problem-solving strategies and develop associated teaching…

Organic chemistry has the long-standing reputation as a challenging course, and organic synthesis is an aspect of organic chemistry that requires students to make the most links between concepts and requires the highest order of thinking. One-on-one interviews were conducted with students from a second undergraduate organic chemistry course in…