Building Confidence for the Retake: My Journey in Organizing CHM 410 Tutorial Sessions

Due to the upcoming retake examination coming up next month for all final year student in the University of Uyo, I decided to organized a tutorial session for my colleagues who had issues with one of the hardest and challenging courses in Chemistry department, the Chemistry of Carbohydrates and Natural products.

The course was our first semester course that we did and the results wasn't flying at all. Challenges and setback were much, but I decided to took it upon myself since I have a clear understanding of the course to organize the tutorial session.

I first of all started by announcing in the general group chat for anyone who had issues and have interest in coming for the lessons session. People shown interest and we had a very interactive and interesting section.

I started by explaining the whole concept about the course, that the course is divided into two.
The Primary Metabolite and
The secondary metabolite

For the primary metabolite, we were focusing on the those essential compounds that are directly involved in the growth, development and reproduction of plants, which includes the Carbohydrates, lipids, Starch, sucrose etc.

Then for the secondary metabolite, those essential compounds which are not directly involved in the growth and development of the plant but serve as a chemical defense mechanism for plant survival and adaptation etc. Here we look at some of it like the
Alkaloids, Terpenoids, the phenolic like the Flavonoid, flavones, etc.

I break down the Carbohydrates from a simple sugar to a polymeric sugars like the monosaccharides to polysaccharides.
Then I classified the monosaccharides from a C3 carbon to the C6 carbon. I e from glyceraldehyde to the glucose series.

I went down to explain the Fischer projection structure and the Harworth formula and structure. Representing them the the two forms which sugars or monosaccharides can exist , that is the Furanose form and the pyranose form of monosaccharides from the Harworth formula.

We went on to discuss the different reactions of monosaccharides like the formation of glycosides, the killianic and Ruff degradation, the formation of Ozasone, etc.

Finally, I ended the classes by treating polysaccharides starting with lactose to starch.
We discussed the two types of starch which are the amylose and the amylopectin and we drew their structures and names it according.

It was a very interesting and interactive section yesterday, and with this they will be confidently ready for the upcoming retake examination coming up next month.

By next week also I will be dealing with the secondary metabolite, that alkaloids, the Flavonoid, phenolic etc.
We will go on to study the active ingredient of about 50 plants and draw their structures.

You can follow me up if you are interested in the video or you need a private lesson on any challenging chemistry courses or topic of your choice.

I respectfully invite @ngoenyi
@bossj23
@ninapenda to this post. Thank you