Peer-led Team Learning Organic Chemistry

Introduction to Workshops for Organic ChemistryOur early research and development convinced us that the Peer-Led Team Learning Workshop helped students acquire the habits of study and thought required to be successful in organic chemistry. In the first edition of this book, we collected successful Workshop problems from a variety of sources. Our purpose was to make these problems freely available to faculty in order to lower the activation energy to implement the PLTL Workshop in their courses. Prentice Hall was a remarkable ally, publishing and distributing the text to faculty without charge. Since that time we have learned more about constructing Workshops that help students build their conceptual understanding of organic chemistry. This second edition is designed as a student workbook, to be used as the central focus of activity in a PLTL Workshop in organic chemistry. It is not a drill book, nor is it a self-contained guided inquiry book. As with the Workshops themselves, this book is intended to be a companion to a textbook in a lecture course. The Workshop problems are challenging; they represent our sense of what we want our students to know, understand and be able to do. Students need to prepare for these Workshop problems by studying the text, the lectures and by working the end-of-chapter problems ahead of Workshop time. Our thinking about this book has been stimulated by the idea of cognitive apprenticeship. We came to the understanding that the structure of a problem could provide the cognitive modeling and scaffolding that students need to move to new levels of skill and insight. We also constructed the problems to encourage the discussion and debate among peers that is essential to build conviction and confidence. We know that the majority of the students in an introductory organic course will not make subsequent use or even retain most of the specific content of the course. But, we also know that the BIG IDEAS and the new thinking skills that come from a yearlong study of organic chemistry are essential ingredients of a liberal education. For most students, these will be the long-term consequences of their study of organic chemistry. Accordingly, we have tried to make these outcomes explicit. We have organized this book for intellectual, rather than temporal, coherence. The four of us use different textbooks to teach organic chemistry in different sequences. Nevertheless, we have found it easy to rearrange the Workshops to fit our own sense of timing. For most Workshops, we have given more than 2 hours worth of problems, recognizing that faculty will pick and choose those that serve their syllabus best. We have many essential collaborators to thank. First among those are the hundreds of Workshop leaders and thousands of students who have helped to shape our ideas and these problems. John Challice, Kristen Kaiser and Prentice Hall have nourished this project from the start. Arlene Bristol and Korrie Sherry performed wonders, with patience and skill, to produce an attractive and readable book. Jack Kampmeier, University of Rochester Pratibha Varma-Nelson, Northeastern Illinois University Carl Wamser, Portland State University Donald Wedegaertner, University of the Pacific To The Student: An Introduction To The Peer-Led Team Learning WorkshopThe Peer-Led Workshop is a unique curricular structure that provides a weekly opportunity for you to engage with your fellow students in the process of constructing your understanding of organic chemistry, and developing new problem solving skills. As part of the process, you will talk, debate, discuss, argue, evaluate, ask questions, answer questions, explain your ideas, listen to the ideas of your colleagues and, ultimately, negotiate your understanding of organic chemistry with them. This process of active, personal engagement with experimental observations and with the ideas of colleagues is tKampmeier, Jack A. is the author of 'Peer-led Team Learning Organic Chemistry', published 2005 under ISBN 9780131855106 and ISBN 0131855107.