Teaching Assistants

Many people who have used this book—instructors, teaching assistants, and students—have e-mailed, written, and called with suggestions on how to improve this book. Others just called to offer their condolences and encouragement on the loss of my co-author. I am grateful. 

You ve probably already heard a lot about your general chemistry course. Many think it is more difficult than other courses. There may be some justification for that opinion. Besides having its very own specialized vocabulary, chemistry is a quantitative science, which means that you need mathematics as a tool to help you understand the concepts. As a result, you will probably receive a lot of advice from your instructor, teaching assistant, and fellow students about how to study chemistry. We hesitate to add our advice experience as teachers and parents has taught us that students do surprisingly well without it We would, however, like to acquaint you with some of the learning tools in this text. They are described in the pages that follow. 

After his doctoral graduation, Helferich became Emil Fischer s personal assistant for two years, and, from 1913 onwards, a teaching assistant. Together with Fischer, he published a series of papers on glycoside synthesis during this period. His scientific career was then interrupted by the First World War, in which he served as an officer throughout. 

I am grateful to the graduate students who have served as my teaching assistants and who have brought to my attention various ambiguities in the text or problem statements. These include J. F. Welch, A. Yu, R. Krug, E. Guertin, A. Kozinski, G. Estes, J. Coca, R. Safford, R. Harrison, J. Yurchak, G. Schrader, A. Parker, T. Kumar, and A. Spence. I also thank the students on whom I have tried out my ideas. Their response to the subject matter has provided much of the motivation for this textbook. 

In the upper right hand corner of the fourth sheet in the notebook, place a 1 . Continue to number the remaining pages in the notebook. Do not write on the back of the paper. The back is used by the teaching assistant or instructor for comments to you about the facing page. 

I again have to thank several colleagues for valuable suggestions. In particular I have to thank Prof. F. G. Fischer, Freiburg, and Dr. Elisabeth Dane, as well as my teaching assistant Dr. G. Hesse, for their active collaboration in the revision of the book. The proofs have been corrected by T. Wieland. 

Another important event occurred in 1942 Dick married Katherine MacPhail. His meager income as a teaching assistant was supplemented by Kay s income as a secretary. 

For me, nothing illustrates this chasm between observation and chemical theory better than my experiences as a teaching assistant in the laboratory of a beginning chemistry course. Students were carefully following procedures described in the lab manuals, filling in the blanks to describe their observations. Then as a kind of climax they were asked to Write the equation for this reaction. Students were often stunned by this request, for they could perceive no connection between what they had observed and the equation they were expected to write. This gap between the perceptual experience of events and their conceptual representation is wider and deeper than for any other of the basic sciences. That fact in large part accounts for the late arrival of chemistry at its maturity, with the work of John Dalton early in the nineteenth century. 

I also wish to express my appreciation to David Strasfeld, Gil Nathanson, John Harriman, and (particularly) Bob Bird, who suggested helpful improvements to an early draft to Mark Wendt, who prepared the rendered graphics for the cover and Figure 11.1 and to John Herbert, Phillip Thomas, and David Strasfeld (all former teaching assistants in Chem 561), who assembled problems and exercises to accompany the book. 

Become familiar with the location and use of standard safety features in your laboratory. All chemistry laboratories should be equipped with fire extinguishers, eyewashes, safety showers, fume hoods, chemical spill kits, first-aid supplies, and containers for chemical disposal. Any questions regarding the use of these features should be addressed to your instructor or teaching assistant. 

Part A Instructor or teaching assistant prepares the enzyme solution... 

The instructor or teaching assistant can complete part A and provide cell cultures to students for plasmid isolation and electrophoresis. Approximately 3-4 hours are required for parts B and C. 

We are grateful to the Chemistry 131 students at UC Davis and especially to the teaching assistants of the course for their suggestions and contributions to the development of the problem sets. 

A second strategy is to use undergraduate assistants to help manage the research projects. Students who have completed the course or interested science majors can work closely with research teams in designing and conducting research, especially laboratory components. For institutions with graduate students, teaching assistants can also be used. 

First and foremost, I would like to thank all of the students and teaching assistants of Chemistry 337 and 338 at the University of Oregon for teaching me most of what I know about green chemistry. I would also like to thank Drs. Ken Doxsee, Jim Hutchison, and Julie Haack for their help with learning green chemistry. Finally, I would like to thank Drs. Peter Wuts of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Doug E. Frantz of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center for their help with some of the industrial examples. 

TEACHING ASSISTANTS WILL MAKE OR BREAK CASPiE... 

The CASPiE curriculum depends heavily on the active participation and buy-in of personnel at all levels. However, simply supporting the pedagogical concept is not sufficient. It is important for all personnel to have clearly defined roles and expectations. The teaching assistants are precariously positioned because of the demands of their job CASPiE teaching assistants must serve as both educators and research mentors. 

I think that was good for them to see that that was sometimes hard for me, cause I didn t wanna lose my credibility as a knowledgeable person in chemistry [laughs] but, um, but I, I didn t know what was going on in that, in that particular case. (Teaching assistant 1)... 

At some institutions during the Spring 2008 semester, the implementation left the teaching assistants without enough instruction, develop-... 

One of the things they say is we re not supposed to, like, we re supposed to let them do their own thing, their own research. .. You come in, you do pretty much a cookbook and I don t see much of a difference between CASPiE and the, and the cookbook labs. (Teaching assistant 2)... 

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