A Guided Inquiry Approach to Organic Chemistry

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The quality of undergraduate education in the scientific process has been enhanced through the acquisition of routine gas chromatograph/mass spectrometers for use in courses which service chemistry majors, premedical students and non-science majors. The primary us of the instrumentation is in the two semester organic chemistry course. Instead of first learning reaction details in lecture with subsequent verification in the laboratory, students are first guided to predict major reaction products (often based on results from molecular mechanics calculations), conduct the reaction (representative of that introduced in lecture without mechanistic detail) and observe trends in product formation. In most instances, each student executes experiments under slightly different conditions; the class results are pooled and displayed with a computer projection system by the instructor. Students participate as a group in the analysis and discussion of their results to formulate and test plausible mechanisms. Utilization of instrumentation in this "discovery" approach promotes true student involvement in the study of organic chemistry, increases interest in the discipline and thus betters chances of attracting and retaining chemistry majors. The school contributed to this project in an amount equal to the NSF funds.