(updated version of post from Aug 20, 2008)<\/i><\/p>\n
An idiosyncratic assortment of suggestions and observations based on 23+ years of teaching.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Studying is a <\/i><\/b>personal<\/i> experience<\/i>.<\/b><\/p>\n EXPERIENCE <\/font>– The only way to find out is to try<\/i> different study techniques and pay attention<\/i> to what happens. Flexibility is mandatory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s all problem-solving.<\/b> 201 and 202 are based on 1. <\/b>It is a good way to learn new material.<\/b> I preach 2. <\/b>Practice!<\/b> Problem-solving is difficult 3. Pay attention to how you feel.<\/b> Are there problems that make you uncomfortable? (Some problems certainly make me<\/i> 4. Repetition + variation.<\/b> Once you learn how to solve a 5. Whenever you feel stuck for whatever reason (intellectual, emotional), come see me<\/i>.<\/b><\/p>\n 6. Base your practice on your textbook.<\/b> This is simply a matter of supply and demand. Practice demands lots of problems and your textbook supplies hundreds<\/i> of them. By comparison, I will write only a few dozen homework + exam problems during the entire semester.<\/p>\n 7. Think it? Draw it!<\/b> It’s true that you can sometimes work a problem in your head, but let’s not get stuck up about this. Most problems are too complicated to be worked that way. Consider, when you work a chemistry How do you get around this? By drawing. Once you make a Here is my standard recommended approach for working most 8. Learn to draw and draw to learn.<\/b> If you write facts over and over, you will remember these facts. If you draw a formula over and over, you will remember how it is put together and its shape. Drawing, which I previously advertised as a tool for keeping track<\/i> of information, is also a tool for inserting<\/i> information into your memory. The authors of a textbook that we no longer use [Solomons & Fryhle} advised students: “Organic chemistry is best assimilated through the fingertips<\/i>.” Practically every problem uses experimental observations as a point of departure. You will have to learn these observations.<\/b><\/p>\n You have probably heard that organic chemistry is “all memorization”, and while I could quibble with some aspects of this statement, I can’t really deny a basic truth: successful students do a lot of memorizing. Why is this necessary?<\/p>\n The simple answer is that chemical phenomena are incredibly complicated and cannot be deduced from first principles. To see this, try answering this “simple” question: is methylamine, CH3NH2, a liquid or a gas under standard conditions?<\/p>\n Give up? This problem is impossible to solve from first principles<\/i>, that is, by working your way from the properties of individual CH3NH2 molecules to the properties of a large ensemble of molecules at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The problem is not impossible to solve, however, if you approach it the right way<\/i>.<\/p>\n If you know<\/i> that ammonia, NH3, is a gas (this must be memorized – you can’t deduce it from first principles) and then you recognize that NH3 makes more hydrogen bonds than CH3NH2, you might realize that CH3NH2 is a less-sticky molecule than NH3 and is probably a gas too.<\/p>\n Notice that some reasoning is required (you must compare NH3 and CH3NH2), but the key “point of departure” is an experimental observation (NH3 is a gas), a raw fact. You can learn facts by memorization, but memorization is not the only way, or even necessarily the best way, to learn experimental observations. Problem-solving is another useful tool for learning the essential facts of organic chemistry (see above). However, regardless of the method(s) you use, you will need to learn many experimental observations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Get to know your book.<\/b> Only one (fat heavy) book is used for all of 201-202.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Get to know me. <\/b>You don’t have to wait for an emergency. Although a lot of the Please come by my office and say “hi”. You don’t need an excuse. You can even say “hi” if we have already said “hi” to each other in conference or lab.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I will keep regular office hours, but I am also Since one of the ways to arrange a meeting is for me to send you a note, I’m going send you a note right now.<\/p>\n To: All students enrolled in Chem 201, Fall 2009<\/i><\/p>\n From: Alan (8\/09)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Please come see me.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Students who respond to this note (you must say “I came because I saw your note”) will be treated by me to one free Paradox beverage of their choice<\/u>. I kid you not.<\/p>\n OK, another thing that you might want to know about me: how I teach. I Finally, Hang a large “Emergency Kindness” button over your desk and use it.<\/b><\/p>\n Are you one of those smart, hard-working people who demand a lot from Suppose one of the following happens to you:<\/p>\n Would any of these things upset you? For how long? What would be your physical response? Would your heart start pumping? Would your stomach churn? What would be your emotional response? Would you beat yourself up emotionally? “Why am I so dumb?” “Why can’t I get my work done?” Would you turn yourself into a victim? “Why do these things always happen to me?” “Why does my prof assign these ridiculous problems?”<\/p>\n These are all normal responses, but they aren’t good ones. Since it is inevitable that a poor performance and a high expectation will eventually collide, we need to find some way to deal with life’s upsets that doesn’t involve turning ourselves into hyper-stressed Type A maniacs.<\/p>\n Here’s my advice: problems are real, but not one problem can be If you think it will help, hang a red ’emergency kindness’ button over your desk to remind you that there is another way to behave. Press it whenever the situation calls for some emergency kindness. You deserve it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Added Sept 1, 2008: The NY Times (Aug 27, 2008, Health) carried an article<\/a> about Psych Central’s “Online College Survival Guide<\/a>“. (updated version of post from Aug 20, 2008)An idiosyncratic assortment of suggestions and observations based on 23+ years of teaching….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5192,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/5192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/chem201202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
PERSONAL <\/font>– Doing X<\/i> works for me, but I can’t say whether it will work for you. The personal<\/i> nature of learning also refers to the fact that something actually happens to your “person”, that is, your body, when you learn. Biochemical and physiological changes must occur in your brain, and your ability to make these changes is limited by your brain’s operating environment (biochemical, neurological, psychological) and by the time you allow for these changes to occur. Take care of yourself. Start your studies sooner rather than later. Be patient with yourself.<\/p>\n
\n
\nproblem-solving, showing that you can apply what you have learned to new
\nsituations. Some thoughts on problem-solving:<\/p>\n\n
\nthe value of memorization (see below), but it has its limits. Memorization entails rehearsing the same thing over and over again.
\nThere is no application. There is no context. There is no novelty. Problem-solving, by contrast, brings
\nother essential information skills (retrieval,
\nselection, combination, and application) into the picture. Each problem provides a new context for the information you are trying to learn. Use memorization and<\/i> problem-solving to learn material.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\nand slow because several skills (retrieval-selection-combination-application) must be performed correctly for the overall
\nprocess to succeed. Practice is the only way I know to make difficult
\nthings easier and to make slow things faster. Practice actually reshapes your brain’s environment so that you become a more effective problem-solver.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\nuncomfortable.) If they do, you might be reluctant to do as much
\nproblem-solving as you should. This is a natural response. You can be a
\nspectator in lecture. Reading is fairly passive
\ntoo. Problem-solving pushes you to be active. If
\nyou are going to solve a problem, you have no choice but to create
\nsomething (“an answer”) that doesn’t yet exist. So if problem-solving
\nmakes you feel uncomfortable, that’s a natural and valid response, but
\nrealize that these feelings may get in the way of practice and practice will, over time, reduce the intensity of any
\nunpleasant feelings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\nparticular type of problem, move on. Change the degree of difficulty. Figure out which problems you can do reliably,
\neasily, and quickly, and which are still problematic.<\/p>\n
\n85% or more of our problems require drawings as answers. But drawings are not just what you produce at the end, they are also what you use in the middle of the problem-solving process.<\/p>\n
\nproblem, you need to juggle several ideas (molecular formulas, reagents,
\nalternative answers) in your short-term working memory. This
\nmemory can hold only 5-7 items at a time (and only with intense
\neffort). When your mind wanders, or you start to manipulate one or two items
\nin your short-term memory, the rest of your short-term memory gets
\nflushed. If you’re relying on your memory alone, you won’t get very far before you’ve forgotten almost everything you need to solve the problem.<\/p>\n
\ndrawing, the information in the drawing no longer needs to be kept in
\nmemory.<\/p>\n
\nproblems (based on the way I was taught to do algebra problems):<\/p>\n\n
9. A solutions manual is a wonderful\/dangerous thing.<\/b>
\nI hate sitting in front of a difficult problem when I know the answer
\nis right over there in the solutions manual. If I get stuck, I like to
\npeek at the answer. Bad idea, you say? Not necessarily, but depending on how you do this, it could
\nbecome
\na bad habit<\/i>. If you see that you can only solve problems by peeking, you haven’t really learned to solve problems.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
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\n
<\/b><\/p>\n\n
\na lovely chart of functional groups. These are the basic nuggets that we use to process structural formulas so this information is really useful. The back cover contains the periodic table. ‘Nuff said.<\/li>\n
\ndrawing a concept map is one of the most powerful learning tools available. Check out this cool web site<\/a> for some extra help and let me know what you think.<\/li>\n
\nYour book is huge. Finding information can be tedious. You can make
\nthis easier by pasting little self-adhesive flags on key pages. It also
\nhelps to write short topic labels on the flags.<\/li>\n
\n
\nroutine stuff I do (leading classes, writing, grading, etc.) is pretty
\ntime-consuming, I would like to spend several hours each week meeting with
\nstudents (but perhaps not several hours with just one student).<\/p>\n
\navailable outside of those hours. Some students like to drop in
\nunannounced, others like to set up appointments. I can meet with individuals and with small groups.
\nMany conversations are tutoring sessions, but sometimes we just chat.
\nThere is really no set pattern. The only constant is that I would really like to meet
\neach of you, and if help is needed, provide it.<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\nI’m a big believer in the written word – books, handouts, web pages –
\nand this affects how I teach. For example, I write a lot. I also expect you to read a lot. You are going to be responsible for practically everything written in chapters 1-14 of your textbook.<\/p>\n
\nbelieve in the spoken word too. Direct
\nhuman-human contact is an extraordinary experience. Unfortunately, verbal communication seems like a less
\nreliable way to pass along information, especially in quantity. If a speaker stumbles or a
\nlistener’s attention wanders, something gets lost. I don’t
\ntry for complete coverage of the material when I lecture. Instead, my
\nlectures are intended to: <\/p>\n\n
\nI believe “teacher” and “student” are only administrative
\nlabels. During our time together, we will all learn, we will all teach,
\nand we will all be changed, hopefully for the better. You will teach me
\nand I will learn from you. One way this happens is when I gaze out over
\nthe sea of faces in lecture. Much better are one-on-one conversations.
\nI am also hoping that you will add comments and questions to this blog.
\nI should add that
\npositive and negative feedback are both<\/i> useful.<\/p>\n
\n
\nthemselves and push themselves to excel? There’s a good chance you are.<\/p>\n\n
\nall the pages in your reading<\/li>\n
\nhomework problem<\/li>\n
\nconference when responding to an instructor’s question<\/li>\n
\nmade better by smacking yourself (or someone else) around. You would never kick a person
\nwith a broken leg, so why would you respond to the insults and
\ninjuries of life by mentally kicking yourself? When your spirit hurts,
\npay attention to it. Tend to it the same way you would tenderly take care of
\na broken leg. Be kind to yourself.<\/i><\/p>\n
\nThis is a collection of essays with advice on diverse topics ranging
\nfrom time management, stress, procrastination to getting a passport and
\ndealing with loneliness.<\/i>
<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"