Chemical acrostic is used as a teaching tool in descriptive inorganic chemistry. This is an active learning approach to engage the students with a fun classroom activity. The acrostics are designed by Simon Cotton and published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's education resource magazine "The Mole." The students are divided into groups of two or three to work on the acrostics. To come up with the answers, the students engage in meaningful group discussions that enhance conceptual understanding.

For many years I have resisted using clickers, mainly because at our university there is no standard universal clicker. I wanted to keep student costs as low as possible but also desired the type of live feedback during a lecture that clicker questions can provide. In both my general chem. (200-300 students) and upper division courses (50-75 students), I now pass out 4 or 5 colored notecards on the first day of class and make sure everyone has one of each color.

This activity is meant to teach students about the types of homogeneous transition metal C-H bond functionalization catalysts. Before class, the students will read a short discussion of inner- and outer-sphere C-H bond functionalization catalysts. Then they will use their knowledge of transition metal oxidation states and ligands in order to assess whether a variety of catalysts react via inner- or outer-sphere pathways.