Teaching Strategies

Topic Strategy Title Description
Identify Core Mechanism

There could be five “different” reactions, but actually they are the same core mechanism. If they can identify an electrophile and a nucleophile and how they get together in a particular context, then they understand all five of the reactions and another 55 too, if they choose to. The ultimate...

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Treat Mechanisms as Cartoons

The actual curly arrow mechanisms are in a way themselves cartoons, how they map to the reality in the way that a Micky Mouse might map to real life.

Practice Problems During Lecture

Try to encourage active learning in the lecture theatre. Talk about a concept and then ask them to look at some examples and work through them on their own.

Re-Summarise

Repeat, re-summarise. Do not put the material on internet to make students write it down!

Reinforce Concept in Different Contexts

Keep coming back to the curly arrow concept, in terms of reinforcing it in different contexts. For a first-year course that’s about 20 lectures, introduce the curly arrow concept in lectures four to seven, then revisit it every lecture thereafter. For 13 or 14 lectures, it would come up in some...

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