• Corpus ID: 55468807

PROBLEMS OF THE GENERAL CHEMISTRY COURSE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: THE 1-2-1 GENERAL/ORGANIC/GENERAL CUR- RICULUM AND ITS CHALLENGES

@inproceedings{Garkov2006PROBLEMSOT,
  title={PROBLEMS OF THE GENERAL CHEMISTRY COURSE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS: THE 1-2-1 GENERAL/ORGANIC/GENERAL CUR- RICULUM AND ITS CHALLENGES},
  author={Vladimir N. Garkov},
  year={2006}
}

• V. Garkov
• Published 2006
• Education

A review is presented of the literature concerning the problems associated with teaching general chemistry and their possible solutions. These problems tend to be associated with three factors: the eclectic nature of the course content, the lack of logical organization of the chemistry topics pre- sented in textbooks, as well as the students, their interests and level of pre- paredness. Different institutions deal differently with these challenges. One of the ways to address the problems in general chemistry is the non-traditional, 1- 2-1 curricular organization of chemistry courses, which is especially appropri- ate for smaller, relatively less selective colleges that follow the liberal-arts model of education found in the United States. In this sequence, students take one semester of general chemistry, followed by two semesters of organic chemistry, and then the second semester of general. Such re-organization requires textual materials which are not currently available on the market. An example of such preliminary, textual materials and their pilot classroom evaluation is described. The topics are hierarchically ordered starting with what is the structure of mat- ter (from atoms to bonding to molecules), moving on to how and then why matter gets transformed. The presentation does not assume any background chemistry knowledge, so that it could serve todayis under-prepared yet able students who may follow the 1-2-1 sequence of chemistry courses. Kewwords: general chemistry teaching; 1-2-1 curricular organization; chem-