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Hello everyone,
I am currently in the process of choosing a textbook and lab manual for the two-semester freshman general chemistry course we will be teaching next Fall. For textbooks, I have personally used Chang, McMurry and Silberberg during my student/teaching assistant days. I have my preferences, however, since I am a new professor, I was wondering if I could get feedback from others that have been teaching this course on what you might think is the best (does not have to be one of the three listed above).
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance,
Tamam
Tamam,
It is nice to see you on here. We currently are using Tro and while I do not have any issues with the book we have been using it for 4 years and it is time to move on and try something else. So far while looking, I have really liked Jespersen. We have not adapted it but we are also in the process of looking at something new.
Nick
For the past 4 years, we used Gilbert, Chemistry: The Science in Context. While there were a lot of nice contextual stories that matched our fall curriculum, such as information on greenhouse gase and molecular vibrations and the molecular structure of nutrients (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates), we heard a lot of complaints from students that the text was not very helpful. This year, we switched to Burdge and Overby, Atoms First, and so far the students are very positive about the book! Again, we picked this book primarily because it matched our order of topics in the fall semester. So, it may not work for everyone. I have been pleased at how favorable the student response has been so far; I don't think I've heard any complaints. The downside is that it is quite pricey, but there are different options available for the ebook or print copies.
Thank you both! Hope things are going well with you both.
Nick, Tro was actually one of the ones the publisher sent to me. I have not looked at Jespersen. I will have to get a copy of it.
Maggie, thank you for your input. I was looking at another text which is also called Atoms First. I really like the order which is not how it is normally done. But one of my collegues thinks students might find that order of topics a little harder. But since you have not gotten any complaints, I will not eliminate that book from my list of favorites.
Thanks again!
We tried an Atoms First approach last year using McMurray and Fay. It went exceptionally bad. In addition to making lab difficult (check our where molarity shows up), our students really struggled with stoichiometry. In my opinion, if you don't get stoichiometry down in a traditional Gen Chem 1, what's the point? They just couldn't do stoichiometry in Gen Chem 2. I think it comes too late in the semester in an atoms first approach and their little brains are fried. My opinion of course. But it was enough for us to switch texts after just one year, something I never thought we would ever do. Just my experience but I thought it worth sharing.
We've switched between Moore, Stanitski & Jurs "Chemistry: The Molecular Science" and Tro's "Chemistry: A Molecular Approach". They've both been fine, my decision has been based more on the online homework system that accompanies the textbooks. When I started, we used MSJ with the OWL system and there were some major problems with OWL so we switched to Tro with MasteringChemistry. Mastering Chemistry had some really nice features, but when the revision cycle came up again, the OWL people had made some improvements, so I decided to switch back to MSJ and OWL. I'm satisfied with my decision, but I don't think either textbook (or online homework system) totally knocks my socks off.
Uh-oh, does that means it's time to write my own? Arg...
One of the first ideas for the founders of VIPEr was to write a textbook. Fortunately, we almost immediately decided that was a bad idea. Maybe in 5 years time there will be enough great stuff up here that you will be able to just download and print LOs from VIPEr to teach. :)
Thank you all for your help! I really appreciate it. Lecture notes on ViPEr, know that would be great:)
Adam,
Perhaps in 5 years, we will have a the VIPEr Inorganic Chemistry Online Textbook!
Does anyone have any thoughts on ebbing and gammon?