I apply the latest research in my lectures (research driving teaching). From this, I developed a new laboratory experiment founded within my research in organocatalysis. The laboratory experiment is conceived to fulfil some of the flaws of our teaching methods. Often, laboratory experiments use basic reactions with simple spectroscopic techniques; however, nowadays the industry demands highly specialised knowledge, for example, in enantioselective reactions or the use of chiral HPLC. In this laboratory experiment, published in J. Chem. Edu., the theoretical NMR knowledge of the student is merged with the latest HPLC techniques in order to assign the absolute configuration of a cyclopropane.
During the pandemia and with the lockdown measures that avoid face-toface teaching, I develop a Youtube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcLhq0iJw0davlXZc4VTomQ) to help my students to understand and study Organic Chemistry.In those videos I explain the subject by Chalk and Talk short lectures and I do and comment exercises about the topics studied.
Figure 2 : Cyclorpropanation Experiment[1]
Related Publications:
1 “Organocatalytic Cyclopropanation of Enals: An Undergraduate Experiment Combining Synthesis, Spectral Analysis and Mechanistic Understanding”; Marta Meazza, Agnieszka Kowalczuk, Sarah Watkins, Simon Holland, Thomas Logothetis, Ramon Rios, J. Chem. Edu. 2018,95, 1832-1839.
