Despite its incredible impact on our everyday lives, organic chemistry has a bad reputation. Often considered a gatekeeper course for admission to competitive health-related professional programs, it is a subject that makes many students nervous. At Lawrence Technological University, we’ve taken intentional steps to make our diverse student population feel welcome and empowered to succeed in our organic chemistry lecture and lab sequence. Three specific interventions will be discussed: (1) The inclusion of a “Women Untold” documentary film featuring the lives and accomplishments of three women of color in STEM in our Organic Chemistry 1 course. Students reflect on what they learned and how this film assignment made them feel on the final exam. The approach to this assignment and qualitative assessment results will be discussed; (2) A medicinal chemistry focused course-based research experience (CRE) in our Organic Chemistry 2 Lab course. CRE pedagogy is widely regarded as a high-impact practice that promotes inclusion, equity, and persistence in STEM-related degree programs and careers. The framework used to develop our CRE intervention will be described, in addition to assessment results; and (3) The inclusion of named reactions discovered and developed by women in our Advanced Organic Chemistry course. Students have the opportunity to research and describe the contributions of women in the discovery of new reactions. The implementation and impact of this course module will be discussed. Overall, these interventions have resulted in very positive feedback from students and an enhanced feeling of self-efficacy and belonging in the organic chemistry curriculum.

Promoting self-efficacy and a sense of belonging in organic chemistry

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.