This paper reports the findings of the initial phase of our study of student use of Web-based tutorial materials for general chemistry and student understanding of chemistry concepts. We found that students who use the Web site value this source of help and the visualization that the Web site offers. Some questions showed a tendency among women to be more positive than men toward use of the Web site, which may suggest value to using the Web to help female students learn chemistry. Our analysis of student understanding of chemistry concepts via concept maps indicated that students who used the Web site did not have as good an understanding of chemistry as the students who did not use it, but that Web users attempted to make more statements about the relevant chemistry concepts. Overall, most students thought that the Web was a good way to get help learning chemistry.

In March 2020, over the course of less than 2 days, the author’s university went from business as usual to suspending classes until weeks later and then completing the semester online. The author reflects on the changes to the mode of teaching, use of technology, problems with academic integrity, and class engagement. The most problematic issues were academic integrity issues and engagement with the online class meetings. Lest the sudden change to online seem to be all bad, opportunities for improvement in the form of transformation of the course to a more flipped-type model have come. Students and faculty largely weathered the emergency.

This study of the relationships between mathematical ability and success and retention in a general chemistry course was conducted at an open‐enrollment university whose mission is to provide a quality education to a culturally and economically diverse student body. We studied the correlation between the demonstrated level of mathematical ability and success in chemistry and the correlation between the demonstrated level of mathematical ability and retention in chemistry. After the chemistry department implemented a mathematics prerequisite for the chemistry course, data were examined to compare success and retention prior to and after the adoption of the prerequisite. Analysis showed that success and retention in chemistry increased after the adoption of the mathematics prerequisite.

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