Narrative
Introduction
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As a teaching assistant for the Chemistry department graduate students are not asked to develop courses. Instead we can lead laboratory classes or teach sections of Organic Chemistry discussion. These discussion sections are a supplement to the lecture class in which a teaching assistant (TA) answers student questions over class material given in the previous week, administer quizzes and proctors’ exams. There is no uniform requirement for discussion TAs instead it is up to the professor to dictate what they expect. The TA has no control over course content, assessments or syllabi.
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From the beginning I wanted to do more than just answer questions, I wanted to provide my students with help on the content. As an effort to achieve this I have taken considerable time to research and develop good teaching practices. Since I have been teaching as a discussion TA I have developed many documents that assist me in putting my teaching philosophy into action. I have created lesson plans notes to use when I lecture, databases and concept maps to organize information.
Lesson Plan
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I prepared for each class by reviewing the material covered over the week. I assembled a notebook of all the subjects covered in the course and an overview of how I would like to teach the content. These notes included step by step clarification, example problems and notes to point out areas where I often feel students go wrong. I began each class with a listing of the topics that they have gone over that week. Followed with a call for questions. When a student asks a specific question, I will link it to the broader material and use one of my prepared examples to illustrate the concept.
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I use analogies often in my classes. If learning is building on information you already know and making connections with that previous knowledge, then analogies are an integral part of learning a new subject. Even when analogies are not colorful or apparent, they are still present in all teaching. As I select analogies, I try to make them as universal as I can and if possible, very silly. I have found silly analogies can make a difficult subject more fun and my students seem to remember them for a long time after, especially if they make them laugh. One such analogy is my clarification on the octet rule in Chemistry. Textbooks describe the octet rule as “the tendency for an atom to achieve a configuration where its valence shell contains eight electrons” in other words atoms strive to have eight electrons around them but cannot (at least for the atoms we are talking about at the time) contain more than eight. Students sometimes think that they cannot have less than eight electrons. I like to use the analogy of a roller coaster car, if it only has eight seats then you can operate the ride with only six people, but if you try to run the ride with ten you end up wiht people falling out.
Teaching Notes
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My notes are hand written, since much of the time I teach I write the examples and explanations on the board. This allows me to use multiple colors to highlight specific parts of a problem or subject. Since Organic Chemistry requires the drawing of molecules in a specific way, drawing on the board helps the students see how to draw the structures and allows me to narrate the process as I draw. As such I have included scanned copies of my notes. I spent time deciding how I wanted to approach the explanation of each subject. Where to start and how to build on each subject to clarify the material. Visually drawing these structures on the board helps students to see what I am discussing and encourages them to draw along and practice. I liken this also to math classes, which are often taught by drawing and working through the subject on the board.
Database
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As part of the planning for each subject of the course I have developed several strategies to organize information. One of my ways to organize information, such as reactions, is to create a database of all the reactions the students will learn in Organic Chemistry. These notes allow me to have a written collection of all required reactions, instead of strictly memorizing them. When forming this document, I realized how useful it was in helping me understand and categorize the many different reactions. This led me to encourage my students to begin to assemble their own “reaction database”, I found that asking them to set this up themselves (instead of copying or finding one online) helped them remember and study better. I suggest that the database should contain at least four columns (reactants, starting material, product and notes) but how they want to organize it is up to them. Some students use notecards, some categorize by reaction type or starting material. Seeing all the reactions in one place allows them to see how they are interconnected.
Concept Map
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I will often have students help me assemble a concept map or form a list of factors. Within a chapter there may be several reactions, as they are given, students get overwhelmed and attempt to memorize every instance. Taking a zoomed out view allows students to see how the reactions interconnect. I have them draw a map connecting reactions that make a functional group and how they can use another reactions to remake the starting material. Seeing this can help the students get a better idea of what they are looking at and focus less on specifics but on concepts instead.
Reaction Decision Tree
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One of the most challenging sections in Organic Chemistry I is when students are first asked to decide what type of reaction will take place with a given set of starting materials and reagents. In this chapter there are four different reactions that can take place using one type of starting material. Students are asked to look at small differences to choose. The class is taught with them getting all the information as a list and sometimes as a table. They attempt to memorize every instance and often miss the point. I developed a decision map that can help them prioritize the factors and make their decisions. By putting it in the decision map, I force them to focus on the most important part first and then the conditions for that specific case.
Conclusion
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Organic chemistry is not a subject where memorizing rules will help you understand. I liken it to a math class, you do not memorize the answer to every possible addition problem (823+376) instead you learn how to apply the tool of addition to any set of numbers. I try to encourage my students to stop trying to simply memorize the material but instead to know the concepts, how they work and how you can apply them. I encourage this by planning to incorporate examples, concept maps, listing and other ways to organize information into my classes. I hope to engage my students throughout the class in a more active use of information, helping them to grasp the concepts and subjects more completely.