1 Bonding and Hybridization

When, every student should understand:

• the subject is vast but logical because of unifying facts and concepts
• facts and concepts at the beginning come up repeatedly
• different learning approaches are required for memorizing facts, understanding concepts, and applying both to problems
• facts are important but a small part of the subject
• concepts are critical, but a small part too
• organic chemistry is mostly practicing recalling facts and applying concepts to solve problems
• answers to concept application questions must be deduced because there are too many variations to memorize them all, and
• solving lots of problems is unavoidable to reach mastery because “in theory you know it, in practice you don’t”

Bonding and hybridization is usually the first topic taught in organic chemistry, and one of the most important. It is difficult to understand material that comes after if the principles of bonding and hybridization are unclear. This workbook provides a way to memorize facts, understand concepts, and practice applications. It comes with most of the answers, access to all, and links to videos involving the trickiest parts.
For instructions, this eBook can be used to facilitate flipped learning (possibly as an experiment for the first class). I use this technique and students learn more (which I suspected) and I enjoy teaching more (that I did not predict).
For students, this eBook is a study guide to understand and test understanding of one of the key foundations necessary to follow organic chemistry.