PLEASE NOTE
My last day at Miami University was Thursday, June 15, 2023.
I now serve as the Dean for The Getty College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio Northern University in Ada, OH.
I can be reached via email at bretzsl@onu.edu and via telephone at 419.772.2130.
My website has relocated to sites.google.com/onu.edu/bretzsl.
Mary Beth Anzovino
B.S. Chemistry, Williams College, 2006
Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Wisconsin Madison, 2013
PostDoc, Miami University, January 2014 – August 2015
Current Position: Associate Director of Organic Chemistry Laboratories, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Exploring Organic Chemistry Students' Understandings of Nucleophiles & Electrophiles
Previous research has shown that organic chemistry students struggle with the electron-pushing formalism used by practicing organic chemists and taught in undergraduate and graduate courses. Recent research has indentified a list of concepts that faculty consider important to master before focusing upon learning the electron-pushing formalism. These concepts include, but are not limited to, electronegativity, bond polarity, Lewis acid-base theory, and identification of nucleophilic and electrophilic sites within organic molecules. Each of these concepts plays an important role in understanding reactivity. Through semi-structured interviews, we explored organic chemistry students’ ideas about nucleophiles and electrophiles: definitions/defining characteristics, examples, and how they approach identifying these types of species in reactions commonly seen throughout the introductory organic chemistry sequence. Manuscripts were published in Chemistry Education Research and Practice reporting the importance to students of charges and mechanisms and a concept map analysis of students' understanding of the structure and function of both nucleophiles and electrophiles.