Description of Course Goals and Curriculum
CHM 304 is the continuation of CHM 303. CHM 303 gives the necessary background information such as reactions and NMR to understand concepts such as synthesis and more complex reactions in CHM 304. The goals of this course is to help students learn how to write mechanisms based off of the information they learned in CHM 303.
The flow of the course is separated into lessons for each class meeting. Each class generally will cover a different topic and class notes are posted before class (usually an hour or two before the class). The concepts build on top of each other however sometimes the class can go fairly quickly through these concepts so it is important to stay up to date with the information and study the notes.
Students will be required to draw knowledge from the previous CHM 303 course and know basic concepts from general chemistry (ie electronegativity, pKa, etc). When a student understands the mechanisms for reactions, they should be able to recognize the mechanisms needed for a particular synthesis.
At times, it would be challenging to organize the mechanisms and their specific functions within a reaction. In order to learn these concepts, I had to do a lot of practice with these mechanisms to see their multiple functions within various syntheses. Using the p-sets as practice was very helpful and talking over mechanisms with Professor Sorensen served as a way to reinforce the information. Writing over key mechanisms from the notes was very helpful to understand their specific function within a whole problem. This gave me a sense of “muscle memory” when writing out the mechanisms on an exam because I already had an idea of the correct mechanism to draw on the sheet. To stay organized, print out all of the class notes and put them in a folder for each week. Take notes and highlight the information you don’t understand so you can ask questions about the confusing topics to your professor or the preceptor. It will be good to keep track of what you are confused on so you can make the most of office hours/ McGraw study hall hours and stay up to date with the information in the course.
Recalling the information from CHM 303 is necessary for CHM 304. It will give the background information needed to do well in the course. You should definitely have a good grasp of SN1/SN2 and E1 and E2 reactions.
Learning From Classroom Instruction
LectureLecture serves as a reinforcement of the notes found online. It would be helpful to take additional notes in class to write out the mechanisms and again gain a sense of “muscle memory” for the material. Actively think about what each mechanism is doing in the course. Although the notes and lectures can be repetitive, thinking through the notes in class and outside will serve as good practice. Due to time restrictions, lecture may not be able to cover each detail of the material. This is when you need to be able to recognize the details that weren’t covered and relate them to the covered material.
Class NotesThe class notes for CHM 304 are the textbook for the course. Sorensen does not use the textbook from CHM 303 so a student should complete their “textbook reading” by reading and writing notes on the notes. The class notes and lecture are fairly repetitive in material covered so it would be helpful to look for other practice problems from precept or other practice exams to get exposed to a variety of scenarios and questions on exams. Class notes should be used in conjunction with lecture and precept practice problems. They can help a student understand questions on precept problem sets and give more information on which mechanisms and reactions to use. It may take a while to find the exact information needed from the class notes but a student can highlight them and section them off by topic in a binder to easily find the information they need.
PreceptsIn precept students will have problem sets to complete within that class and outside of class. It is important to finish each question and try your best to answer it to the best of your ability. This will serve as good practice for exams where you many not know the exact mechanism but you can give a partially correct mechanism for partial credit. In precept you are expected to work in groups on the problem sets after the preceptor has introduced some of the concepts to the class as a whole. The graduate preceptor along with the undergraduate preceptors afterwards will come around the class to see if anyone needs help. Feel free to ask all of the questions you need during this time. In a sense it is similar to office hours where you can ask any question you would like while your questions are guided by the precept problem sets. Although some members of your group may finish questions more quickly than you or you may go through the problems at a fast pace, try to keep pace with the rest of the group. If you understand a concept and you notice some of your group members are struggling with a topic, feel free to explain your reasoning for answering a particular question a certain way. Go through each part of your answer step by step and explain what caused you to have that particular reasoning for each step to your classmates. If you happen to be on the other end of the spectrum where you need help with problems, feel free to ask members of your group who seem to be understanding the material how they reasoned through a particular problem. Ask for step by step details if need be. Organic Chemistry has multiple steps in answering a question so don’t feel like you have too many questions when seeking help in precept from peers and preceptors.
-After gaining new knowledge in precept, use that to answer the rest of the questions on the precept problem sets and exams. This will help you relate back information you have already gone over and force you to go through each part of an answer step by step.
LabLabs are meant to show students the applications of the reactions and mechanisms they learn in class. Although, the material you learn in class doesn’t always line up with the material you cover in lab, you will be able to see the connection between the material at the end of the course. Seeing this connection as a whole will allow you to do well on the exam since you can see the points in the semester where the information crossed over with class material. There will be one lab question on the exams and gaining practice with NMR and mechanisms taught in class will be helpful. NMR is not taught again in CHM 304 unlike CHM 303 so it is important to refresh yourself on NMR at the beginning of the course. This will make studying for the lab question on exams easier. Lastly, practicing lab exam problems will be helpful in learning how to tie in your knowledge about NMR and mechanisms found in the course.
Learning For and From Assignments
Understanding the function of course tasks and what learning methods and processes they require help students align their learning with instructional purposes. Assignments and tests are not only parts of the course where knowledge and skills are learned and practiced, but they (along with the criteria of evaluation) also reveal the skills and knowledge most valued in the course. Reflect on the prompts, questions or problems on exams and other assignments as well as the apparent grading criteria to clarify the kinds of knowledge and thinking skills valued in this course.
- Problem-sets
- Tests, including exams and quizzes
The exams will force you to compile the knowledge you picked up from precept, the precept problem sets, the class notes, past exams, and lab questions. Every synthesis problem is not the same and requires you to place your knowledge in order for the problems. The questions in a sense will be a stretch in order for you to learn new information. Sometimes the questions have straightforward recall of information which can be found on your cheat sheet (ie reactions) however, there will be problems that can be seen as an extension/stretch of the knowledge you have where you need to use multiple concepts to come to a solution.
I would use the past exams for practice before an exam. It helped me get a feel for the problems and placed me in the mindset for how I would need to approach the problems. I created a cheat sheet which is allowed for each exam. Students are allowed to utilize space on the front and back. I personally added more information for each midterm to build a “toolbox” of reactions and information that would be useful for each exam. This allowed me to have a comprehensive sheet already made for the final. This helped save time in creating the sheet. I would use my sheet while completing practice exams to have the feel of a real exam. The sheet serves as a reference during the exam so you don’t have to memorize all of the reactions needed to answer the questions. It’s meant to make the test less about memorization and more about applying the concepts.
The p-sets, class notes, lab reports, and practice exams can all be used as preparations for exams by comparing each resource to see how the questions can be extended. The exam will make these question found on p-sets more challenging so it is important to look at the present material and question how Professor Sorensen might use multiple concepts in one question.
-If time allows, it would be helpful to read through the class notes first to have an idea of what you will be covering in the p-set and precepts. Afterwards, you can use the precept problem sets to see how it extends the information presented in the notes.
-The P-sets will allow you to have certain pieces of knowledge and concepts that you can apply on exams. The exams will force you to piece together these concepts to finish synthesis problems and mechanisms. It’s important to know that p-sets are essentially giving you the separate tools to use on exam day where you have to piece all of the concepts together for a final reaction/answer.
- Lab Reports
Lab reports can take a good chunk of time to complete. Therefore, it is very important that you attend the review sessions for lab because they can guide you on how to answer the lab questions. Having this guidance on which information is pertinent can help save time. Additionally, you can work with classmates on lab reports if you have any questions. Of course you cannot share data, however, you can share ideas and answer each other’s questions on the problems. In general, NMR is very important in answering lab questions so the lab reports will serve as good practice with NMR before an exam. (Lab questions on exams will tend to be heavy in NMR). Lastly, the mechanisms covered in lab questions will also mirror the mechanisms found on exams. They may not be the exact same reactions however, they will share some similarities. It should be noted that a student can bring a cheat sheet (front and back) and their lab notebook for the lab portion of the exam. Here you can write out the mechanisms learned in lab and their function to have a quick reference during the exam. It would be helpful to tab the portions of the lab notebook that have pertinent information for a particular midterm. This will reduce the amount of shuffling you have to go through during an exam.
External Resources
Office hours are by appointment with Professor Sorensen but he gives very detailed responses to your questions. If he shows you a mechanism to a problem, write it down and try to explain it back to him step by step. This will help you reinforce why you are taking certain steps in the problem and it will help you see the reasoning needed for certain problems.
The Mastering Organic Chemistry website is very helpful because there are reference sheets that have useful mechanisms and explanations. This can be used as you do practice problems on precept problem sets. As you become more confident with the information, you should try to ween yourself off of the sheets in order to know the mechanisms on your own. If you want, you can place the information from the sheets onto the one “cheat sheet” (information can be on the front and back) you are allowed to have for the exam. The link for Mastering Organic Chemistry is listed here:
http://www.masterorganicchemistry.com/What Students Should Know About This Course For Purposes Of Course Selection
In the future it will be helpful to know certain mechanisms since it will have applications in Biochemistry. If a student decides to do independent work that is chemistry heavy, organic chemistry will allow students to understand certain concepts and mechanisms that will prove helpful in their independent work.
Organic chemistry is a pretty major time commitment so it would be wise to ensure that you can commit a fair amount of time to this course. If anything, this should be your heaviest course for the semester. If you can, try to not to take too many heavy time commitment classes while you take CHM 304.
I definitely grew a stronger appreciation of organic chemistry since I was able to apply some concepts I picked up from the course in my research. Seeing the concepts applied in lab helped me see how helpful organic chemistry was and I’m grateful that I was able to take the course.