Tro Chemistry

Nivaldo J. Tro, Santa Barbara City College

Actively engage students 

Nivaldo Tro, an award-winning instructor and author, employs a consistent problem-solving approach and integrates active learning tools to turn students into expert problem solvers and critical thinkers. Drawing on extensive classroom experience, Tro’s chemistry textbooks actively engage students by connecting chemistry to real-world applications and emphasizing its relevance in daily life. Every aspect of Tro's content and features is crafted to facilitate learning and success in chemistry courses. His approach combines pedagogical innovation with insights from learning design and educational research, creating an active, integrated, and user-friendly framework.

Explore the series | Features | Meet the author | Testimonials | Webinars

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Collage of covers of chemistry books by Nivaldo J. Tro

Explore the series

Click on a cover to learn more about each title.

Chemistry: A Molecular Approach, 6th edition
Chemistry: Structure and Properties, 3rd edition
Introductory Chemistry, 7th edition
Principles of Chemistry: A Molecular Approach, 4th edition

Features

Discover digital features that enhance student learning. Available in Mastering® Chemistry for all Tro Chemistry Textbooks.

Still image from a video on vaporization and vapor pressure

Key Concept Videos

Combine text and art with animations for a dynamic viewing and learning experience with narration and brief live-action clips of Tro explaining key concepts.
Still image from a video on hydrogen bonding

Interactive Worked Examples

Digital versions of select worked examples from the text that instruct students how to break down problems using the “Sort, Strategize, Solve, and Check” technique.
Example of an interactive problem on intermolecular forces

Key Concept Interactives

Students navigate through these interactives to learn key concepts. 

Each item breaks down key topics and guides students through an interactive experience with opportunities for practice. Questions provide wrong-answer feedback.
Example of an answer screen

Chemistry Diagnostic

The Chemistry Diagnostic assesses students' levels of understanding in the context of math relevant to their chemistry course and creates personalized plans to help them remediate the math skills necessary to succeed in the chemistry sequence.  The Chemistry Diagnostic makes it easy to see where students are struggling with key prerequisite math skills, so they study what they don’t know — not what they’ve already mastered.

 
Example of a question screen

Interactive Conceptual Connections

Interactive Conceptual Connections help students develop conceptual understanding instead of memorizing mathematical operations. This feature addresses students' misconceptions and provides answer-specific feedback written by Nivaldo Tro.

Give students practice studying as they extinguish misconceptions and deepen their understanding of key topics.
Example of a Missed This screen

Missed This?

Missed This? appears in the end-of-chapter Self-Assessment Quizzes and each odd-numbered Problems by Topic exercise. It provides sections to read and videos to watch to help students remediate where necessary.

 

Meet the author

Nivaldo J. Tro

Nivaldo J. Tro

Santa Barbara City College

Nivaldo Tro has been teaching college chemistry since 1990 and is currently teaching at Santa Barbara City College. He received his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University for work on developing and using optical techniques to study the adsorption and desorption of molecules to and from surfaces in ultrahigh vacuum. He then went on to the University of California at Berkeley, where he did postdoctoral research on ultrafast reaction dynamics in solution. Professor Tro has been awarded grants from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, the Research Corporation, and the National Science Foundation to study the dynamics of various processes occurring in thin adlayer films adsorbed on dielectric surfaces. Professor Tro lives in Santa Barbara with his wife, Ann, and their four children, Michael, Ali, Kyle, and Kaden. In his leisure time, Professor Tro enjoys mountain biking, surfing, and being outdoors with his family.

Active Learning In General Chemistry

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Niva Tro: On Active Learning

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Getting the Most out of Classroom Time

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“Having before class assignments are super helpful because you go into class already understanding some of the material and it’s not like you have to learn it on your own, but the key concept videos and interactives that he puts up to help with the pre-lecture assignments are really helpful.”
“I really enjoyed the pre-lecture assignments because we get to learn them on our own and then we come to lecture kind of solidifies our understanding and then if we have questions that we need to ask Tro he’s really good at answering them.”
 

Author webinar

Spacing, Retrieval, and Testing: Using Digital Tools to Enhance Learning in General Chemistry

Dr. Nivaldo Tro, Santa Barbara City College

Education research demonstrates the effectiveness of certain pedagogical strategies such as the spacing effect, the finding that long term retention is enhanced by learning that is spaced out over time rather than massed. Other strategies include the power of retrieval, and pretesting in student retention. We now have digital tools that enable us to easily implement these strategies into our general chemistry courses. In this session, Professor Tro will discuss these effects and their implementation in general chemistry.  

Recorded on: September 27, 2022

Integrating New Digital Tools into Pre-Built Courses with Niva Tro

Dr. Nivaldo Tro, Santa Barbara City College

Join Niva Tro as he discusses his new digital tools and how they can be incorporated into highly structured courses: courses featuring clear learning goals, regular in-class exercises that promote student participation, and frequent out-of-class assignments that encourage practice and preparation. Niva will elaborate on and share his pre-built courses that integrate these new digital tools, enabling you to swiftly set up a course that engages your students on a new level.

Live on: September 27, 2024

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