MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Abstract: Every semester, approximately 1200 students at the University of Maryland are enrolled in an organic chemistry course – by the end the number has dropped to 1000 (University of Maryland class registry). Whether we like it or not, organic chemistry must be taken by all students wishing to be a doctor and the 17% drop rate is alarming. However, organic chemistry doesn’t have to be the daunting task it is made out to be. As one of the most foreign subject topics in these classes, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) represents a major hurdle students must overcome. While NMR is not directly applicable to the medical field, students must learn the intricacies as a right of passage. My goal is to help alleviate the burden of this ‘weed-out’ course with a detailed background and guide to solving these problems. According to Dr. Friedman, organic chemistry professor at the UMD, the biggest mistake that students make is not checking their structure after drawing it, and making sure that the spectrum that they'd predict from their proposed structure matches the data that they have. As a teaching assistant, I will use my experiences in taking the course and teaching it to help students avoid these problems.

WC: 202

Reader’s Profile: I picture a stressed undergraduate student who is desperately looking for a concise and concentrated guide on how to do NMR problems. They will most likely be frantic at the prospect of the challenging workload of second semester organic chemistry.

Reader’s Response: I don’t understand why he thinks that he is able to help so much. He’s still an undergraduate and basically the same age as me. He acts like he knows how to do everything in this course, but I heard the TA’s just get the answer keys and don’t actually know the material. I like that he defined all these terms for me, but I’m having a hard time visualizing how to use the techniques. Maybe ill try some his methods and combine them with some of the stuff that has worked for my friends and me in the past.

K, perhaps some stressed students lose trust in TAs. Is there a way to turn this on its head? As in, a young person -- the TA -- mastered this applied concept. I can, too.

Does the idea of practice help? As in good practice, with keys?
http://gladwell.com/outliers/the-10000-hour-rule/