A collection of all of the IONiC VIPEr SLiThErs (Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: a Hosted, Engaging Roundtable). These events are short presentations on a topic followed by a period of discussion between the presenter and live participants. Each of these events is recorded and posted to the IONiC VIPEr YouTube Channel.
This literature discussion was prepared as part of the 2025 ACS awards collection in honor of Gary J. Schrobilgen, winner of the M. Frederick Hawthorne Award in Main Group Inorganic Chemistry.
This is a literature discussion focused on calculating and comparing the Mulliken electronegativites of the noble gases. Students can explore how this periodic property extends into the noble gases and impacts the observed reactivity of Group 18 compounds. The discussion could be used either as an in-class activity or a homework assignment.
This activity is a post-exam reflection that is adapted from the Exam Wrappers created by Marsha Lovett at Carnegie Mellon University. The activity has the students build metacognition skills by analyzing their exam preparation and performance. Then, students work to identify how each of their study strategies had a positive or negative impact to their performance. Finally, they outline a plan for how they will prepare for future exams. If the student would like, these reflections and plans are then discussed with the instructor in 1-on-1 meetings.
This activity is intended for use in a college-level second term general chemistry course, and is designed to engage students in a guided concept development exercise that will help them construct conceptual understanding of how non-volatile solutes impact the boiling point and freezing point of aqueous solvent.
The MoleCVUE website contains several items that should be of interest to the VIPEr community, especially the activities. Each activity is designed to be ready to deploy in lecture, laboratory, or as homework. There are activities covering all of the major subdisciplines of chemistry (some more than others). Some activities that might be of particular interest to VIPEr are "Group Theory", "VSEPR", and "Electron Configurations of Atoms and Ions". All of the activities are written to use WebMO, but could be adapted for other systems. Most activities are doable with the free or demo versi
BoB LeSuer (Associate Professor at SUNY - Brockport and President of IBiB) discusses using a maker space for teaching chemistry. Topics include: digital fabrication of pedagogical materials (models and periodic tables); instrumentation (potentiostat and liquid dispenser); and upcycling plastics into functional materials. Of special interest to this group will be work BoB has done on making the ICE solid state model kits available to anyone!
This is an in-class activity that introduces students to the concepts of ionization of strong and weak acids in aqueous solutions and equilibrium constants for acid ionization using two of the domains in Johnstone's triangle of chemistry knowledge, submicroscopic particle level illustrations and symbolic representations.
Chip Nataro (Lafayette College) hosts a live discussion covering the favorite labs that people teach. The discussion somewhat evolved into a conversation on "so, you are teaching inorganic lab for the first time...what do you do?"