Development and Use of Flowcharts for Identifying Types of Isomers and Naming Coordination Compounds

Abstract

In this paper, the main purpose is to describe the development and use of three flowcharts for identifying types of isomers and naming coordination compounds. The first flowchart is designed to help students identify the type of isomers between the two coordination compounds. The second one is is designed to identify the type of stereoisomerism. Students can then name one of the coordination compounds through the third flowchart. Ten second-year preservice chemistry teachers attending an Inorganic Chemistry II course participated in the study. It has been demonstrated in practice that these flowcharts could influence preservice chemistry teachers' ability to identify types of isomers and their knowledge of nomenclature for coordination compounds. Participants' views about the flowcharts indicated that they are very effective tools.

Pre-service chemistry teachers’ knowledge of the coordination number and the oxidation number in coordination compounds

“…In addition, failure to correctly determine the oxidation number will lead to incorrect naming of the compound. Yesiloglu et al (2021) developed a flow chart for naming coordination compounds and examined the naming errors. They determined that the second most common error was due to the incorrect determination of the oxidation number (Yesiloglu et al, 2021).…”

“…Yesiloglu et al (2021) developed a flow chart for naming coordination compounds and examined the naming errors. They determined that the second most common error was due to the incorrect determination of the oxidation number (Yesiloglu et al, 2021). In addition, Sreenivasulu and Subramaniam (2019) determined that the concepts of the coordination number and oxidation number were confused with each other (Sreenivasulu and Subramaniam, 2019).…”

“…In one study, M. E. Cass, an advanced inorganic chemistry course instructor, introduced an activity he developed to teach ligands (Cass, 2004). In another study, flowcharts for determining the type of isomer and naming in coordination compounds were developed and findings on their use were presented (Yesiloglu et al, 2021). Another study related to this area is on organometallics (Gorunova et al, 2018).…”

“…Although this concept is a very important subject in the university chemistry curriculum, there are very few studies on misconceptions about this concept (Sreenivasulu and Subramaniam, 2019). In addition, it is seen that the oxidation number and coordination number concepts are mixed (Parkin, 2006;Sreenivasulu and Subramaniam, 2019;Yesiloglu et al, 2021) or used interchangeably even in academic studies (Smith, 2005).…”

Clock It: Solving the 3-D Chirality Problem with a 2-D Method—A Simple Algorithm for Teaching and Determining Enantiomers in General Chemistry

“…A recent review of chirality in metal complexes makes full use of the mirror image approach; color helps, too . A detailed set of three flowcharts for identifying isomers and naming has recently been devised and tested . It is aimed at advanced students who are taking inorganic chemistry and not the chemistry neophyte.…”