Learning organic chemistry day by day: The best choice of the best pharmacy students

Background and purpose During over ten years of experience in teaching organic chemistry at the Department of Pharmacy we have tried to answer the following question: why do most students tend to take the exam one, two, or more years after the end of the course they have attended? Several reasons could justify this delay, but three seem to be the most common drawbacks for our students: a) time needed for the comprehension of the arguments; b) the number of mandatory exams to pass before organic chemistry; c) lack of a self-evaluation method. Educational activity and setting To increase the number of students in the exam sessions of the semester just after the course we have proposed two strategies: 1) a systematic, but stressless, approach by which homework and everyday life examples concerning organic chemistry are used to increase the sense of responsibility in studying; 2) the modification of the number of mandatory exams required for organic chemistry. Findings The rate of successful students in the exam sessions at the end of the course increased from 38.3 up to 61.3%. Interestingly, the highest scores tend to be obtained by students in the first session available just after the conclusion of the course. Discussion and summary The combined effect of Strategy 1 and Strategy 2 seems to be effective in promoting the learning of organic chemistry and points out that the best performances tend to be associated with students which follow organized studying.