Database vs. Expert System Teaching Paradigms: Using Organic Reaction Mechanisms To Teach Chemical Intuition

Students' understanding of acids/bases in organic chemistry contexts

“…Chemistry is difficult to learn (Scudder, 1997;Markow and Lonning, 1998). This statement may be explained, in part, by the hypothesis that often students have only limited informal, everyday experience with chemistry; this experience is normally linked to physical phenomena they encounter (Hand and Treagust, 1991).…”

Pericyclic or Pseudopericyclic? The Case of an Allylic Transposition in the Synthesis of a Saccharin Derivative

“…Woodward and Hoffmann then go on to state, “All the more is it then important to give consideration to some reactions which might appear on casual inspection to contravene orbital symmetry conservation.” We agree that such apparent violations should be studied and discussed openly, and we have attempted to provide an appropriate theoretical treatment of one such reaction here. We believe that the delineation between rules based on first principles, the types of rules that are essentially “unbreakable”, and models that are approximated on the basis of physical data, is critical for the development of chemical intuition . Thus, we hope that the Woodward–Hoffmann rules are rigorously described when introduced and are applied only when appropriate.…”

“…We believe that the delineation between rules based on first principles, the types of rules that are essentially "unbreakable", and models that are approximated on the basis of physical data, is critical for the development of chemical intuition. 52 Thus, we hope that the Woodward−Hoffmann rules are rigorously described when introduced and are applied only when appropriate.…”

Proposed Methodological Improvement in the Elucidation of Chemical Reaction Mechanisms Based on Chemist-Computer Interaction

“…A collaborative team consisting of chemist and computer program (e.g., MECHEM) is clever enough to overcome the weakness of our minds by making positive-but appropriately circumspect-chemical contributions of this form: Given the available experimental evidence and reliable assumptions based on background knowledge, the following is a comprehensive list of the simpler, plausible, reaction mechanism hypotheses. Our methods and software are a promising approach to enhance the teaching of chemical intuition in mechanistic chemistry as expounded, for example, by Scudder in this Journal (19). In particular, MECHEM's capabilities for predicting and explaining isotopic labeling patterns can be used to teach these valuable skills of experiment design and interpretation, or to aid lecturers in the preparation of interesting classroom exercises or exam questions.…”