Visual analogies play an important role in the teaching and learning of many diverse topics in chemistry. Organic nomenclature is an essential skill needed for student success in organic chemistry; however, it is a topic most students have difficulty in mastering. Without a strong foundation of nomenclature, students will struggle to follow more advanced organic chemistry topics. The project described uses the analogy of a mailman, who is new to an area and trying to remember the destinations of his postal route, to teach alkane nomenclature. Once students master the topic of alkane nomenclature, they are ready to take on the task of naming other organic molecules. Application of the Teaching-With-Analogies (TWA) model defines a stepwise approach to generate an effective analogy and hence was used in the development of the mailman analogy. An easily understandable picture of a mailman, a route system, and housing along the route provides an analogy capable of developing students' understanding of alkane nomenclature in organic chemistry. The assessment of student learning gains was performed in two different settings (Analogy versus Nonanalogy Groups) and it reveals that students who learn nomenclature with the analogy retain their learning gains through the course, whereas students who learn nomenclature without the analogy lose some of their gains as the semester continues.

A strong desire to upgrade the general chemistry laboratory program at Georgia Southern University (GSU) through greater use of more modern laboratory techniques led to an NSF-DUE grant (0088586) to purchase computers and interfaced analytical probes. Included in the project was a complete restructuring of many of the traditional laboratory experiments to utilize the new equipment and also the development of Web-based laboratory tutorials to better prepare students for the experiments and to ease the transition into use of the new technology. Immediate improvements could be seen with the addition of computers for data acquisition, spreadsheets for data analysis, and molecular modeling software. Furthermore, the use of the Web-based tutorials served to familiarize the students with the equipment and techniques involved in the experiment, reducing the anxiety associated with using previously unseen equipment and allowing students to begin with a greater degree of confidence. This has been very important for those students with limited prior chemistry experience and was instrumental in helping students adapt to the new computer-based equipment. A particularly beneficial result of the computers and tutorials has been the savings in laboratory time, which has allowed experiments to be expanded to explore conceptual understandings and related applications.

Recent research indicates that students are adopting a consumerist approach to education, while data shows that the best academic outcomes are associated with intrinsic motivation. The goal of the study was to explore student academic motivation in an undergraduate Principles of Chemistry I class. The study targeted 432 students enrolled in 9 sections of the class over two semesters at a mid-sized, public four year university. Student academic motivation was measured using the adapted Academic Motivation Scale (AMS). A total of 311 students returned the survey (response rate = 72 %). The results indicated that students enrolled in IntroductionA significant number of scholarly reports on student motivation comes from the college classroom environment and indicates that student motivation is vital for success at the university level (Astin, 1984;Howey, 1999;Pintrich, 1988aPintrich, , 1988bRyan et al., 1985). Student motivation has been shown to be a determinant of academic performance and achievement (Pintrich, 2004) with motivated students having better class attendance (Moore et al., 2008) and course grades (Wilson and Wilson, 2007), including a higher first-year academic performance (Allen et al. 2007). Historically, psychologists have viewed motivation as a unitary concept-one that differs in amount rather than type. In contrast, Self Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci and Ryan, 2008) considers motivation to be a differentiated concept that differs in type and exists along an underlying continuum of autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2000): amotivation (AM), extrinsic motivation (EM) and intrinsic motivation (IM). The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS; Figure 1) (Vallerand et al., 1992), a well-tested metric for exploring academic motivation within the SDT perspective, further subdivides IM and EM into three subscales each.With amotivation, the person perceives (1) a lack of contingency between behavior and the attainment of desired outcomes and/or (2) a lack of ability to perform the behavior that is necessary to attain desired outcomes. As a result, the person experiences passivity and an absence of autonomy.With extrinsic motivation, the person does an activity, because it leads to a separable outcome or consequence, such as obtaining a reward or avoiding a punishment. SDT specifies three types of extrinsic motivation that vary in the degree to which they are internalized into the self and, therefore, autonomous. The least internalized type of extrinsic motivation is external regulation (EM-External Regulation; EM-ER), in which the person is motivated by the salience of external rewards or punishments. The next type of extrinsic motivation is introjected regulation (EM-Introjected Regulation; EM-IN), in which the person is motivated by the salience of internal rewards (e.g., pride) or punishments (e.g., guilt). Both external regulation and introjected regulation are experienced as relatively controlled forms of extrinsic motivation. As the process of internalization proceeds, the next type of extrinsic motivation is identif...

Georgia Southern University requires all students to take a course in environmental science through the chemistry, geology, biology or physics departments. This policy, implemented in 1999 and supported by the National Science Foundation, is aimed at improving scientific literacy and awareness. Implementation required laboratory experiences appropriate for students with minimal science background. We also offer an upper level environmental chemistry course for our majors, and sought to expand its experimental resources. In this work, we report on the successful incorporation of a direct mercury analyzer into the laboratory for both non-majors and majors.

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