Patient organic chem prof successfully teaching/tutoring since 1994

Douglas S.

With a B.A. in chemistry and Ph.D. in biochemistry I’ve taught and tutored chemistry courses for 30+ years. I recently retired from full-time teaching. While I taught a wide range of courses for science majors and non-majors, I've taught organic chemistry and GOB (a.k.a. nursing chemistry or allied health chemistry) more than other topics.

My teaching methods focused on helping students who struggled with chemistry, felt their efforts weren’t yielding fruits, were confused by the content, and/or were looking to try new study methods. I used various forms of active learning where I could observe students attempting to work through problems, letting me see where and why they got stuck or arrived at wrong answers. My chemistry classes were ‘flipped,’ which meant that essentially every class period I was tutoring. I also held weekly online “Help Sessions” where students came for additional tutoring.

That means I’ve spent more than 1,100 hours tutoring students in organic chemistry. Those hours helped me improve my instruction and are one reason I received exceptionally high ratings from my students, who often noted that I was effective, patient and cared deeply about their success.

Included in my hourly tutoring fee, if you want this, are a practice quiz and answer key for the types of problems/questions you brought to the tutoring session, and I'll send that to you after the session.

My main research area was chemistry education. To learn what other professors were doing and having success with, I attended more than 20 conferences where faculty shared teaching ideas and results. I frequently presented my own chemistry teaching research. I published a book chapter on teaching organic chemistry with active learning techniques (ACS Books Symposium Series, 2019, 1336, 149-166). Because I often observed students becoming frustrated after spending many hours studying but seeing little benefit, I also taught proven techniques for more effective and efficient ways to study.