Course Policy for CHEM 102B INSTRUCTOR FOR CHEM 102B: Dr. Kelly Marville Office: 205 Chemistry Annex Office Hours: Mon. and Wed. 11-12:00 noon Tues. and Thurs. 2-3 p.m. marville@illinois.edu Telephone: 244-0402 This course will be run out of the Lon-capa website (https://access1.lon-capa.uiuc.edu) which requires that you log-in using your net-id and password. All materials needed for the course; i.e. homework, Power points, worksheets and quizzes will be placed in Lon-capa. Lon-capa can be accessed through Firefox or Internet Explorer, or any Web browser program. Students over all grades are kept only in the online grade book. Access to the online grade book, class announcements, exam information and the link to be used to register your i-clicker can be accessed by going to http://www.chem.illinois.edu/clcwebsite, clicking on the Course Web Sites link and then on the icon for 102B. REQUIRED MATERIALS: 1. Chemistry, 8th ed. or any later or earlier edition, by Zumdahl & Zumdahl 2. Electronic calculator with log function 3. i-clicker with the ability to answer multiple choice questions RECOMMENDED: 1. Partial Solutions Guide for Chemistry, 8th ed., Hummel, Zumdahl and Zumdahl INFORMATION ABOUT CLASS: WHEN AND WHERE: 1. There will be two lectures and two discussion sections per week. The 102B lectures are held at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in 100 NL and the discussion sections are on Wednesdays and Fridays in the room and time indicated on your schedule. New concepts will be introduced each lecture while discussion of these concepts and problem solving will take place during discussion sections. 2. Most students are required to take Chem 103, General Chemistry Laboratory, concurrently with Chem 102. This lab course provides active demonstration of principles covered in Chem 102B and introduces experimental skills. Details concerning Chem 103 will be discussed during check-in (see the General Chemistry Experiments: Chemistry 103 text for the lab schedule.
GRADING: Online Homework I-clicker points Quizzes Hour Exams (150 pts. each) Final Exam Total 80 pts. 20 pts. 150 pts. 450 pts. 300 pts. 1000 pts. Hour exam grades and the final exam grade will be scaled so that 90-100 = A, 80-89 = B, 70-79 = C, 60-69 = D and 0-59 = F. At the end of the semester, points from each of the areas listed above will be added together (1000 total points) and overall course grades will be set according to the 90, 80, 70, 60 scale, i.e., 1000-900 = A, 899-800 = B, 799-700 = C, 699-600 = D and below 600 = F. With the plus/minus grading system: 970-1000 = A+; 930-969 = A; 900-929 = A-; 870-899 = B+; 830-869 = B; 800-829 = B-; 770-799 = C+; 730-769 = C; 700-729 = C-; 670-699 = D+; 630-669 = D; 600-629 = D-; 0-599 = F Depending on the distribution of points at the end of the semester, these borderlines may be lowered, but never raised. ONLINE HOMEWORK From the second week of the semester you will have electronic homework sets assigned which we call Lon-capa homework. The Lon-capa assignments due dates/times are always 9 a.m. Tuesday and you have one week to complete each homework assignment. Please see the course syllabus for the list of deadline dates for Lon-capa Homework Your online (Lon-capa) homework grade (80 points) will be determined by how many of the assigned problems you complete correctly. Each problem is assigned a point total. You receive all these points when you successfully answer that problem correctly (assuming all work is done before the deadline). Any work after the deadline will not earn any credit (no exceptions). The Lon-capa system will keep a running total of all points earned during the semester. At the end of the semester, we will prorate your total points earned from the online homework sets into an 80 point grade. If you do all assigned problems correctly by the deadline then you will earn an 80 (a perfect score) for your Lon-capa homework grade. If you do 90% of the assigned homework problems correctly then you will earn a 72 for your homework grade, etc. Since students can attempt all problems up to 99 times before the deadline, there is no reason for any student in the course to have an online homework grade less than (or close to) perfect (80). The online (Lon-capa) homework sets are not inclusive of all the types of problems expected for you to master. This is why suggested problems from the text and worksheets are also given.
QUIZZES Over the course of the semester you will be given 12 quizzes, each worth 15 points. The purpose of these quizzes is to help you prepare for hour exams by testing content and your ability to manage time. You will take twelve 30 minute online quizzes and these quizzes will be timed. These quizzes will be made available through Lon-capa and will open every Friday at 1 a.m. and close on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. You will have ONE chance (NO EXCEPTIONS) to sit the quiz over this time period but will have two attempts at each question in the quiz over the 30 minute period. PLEASE SELECT A GOOD TIME AND A GOOD LOCATION WHEN YOU WANT TO TAKE EACH OF THE ONLINE QUIZZES; MAKE SURE YOU HAVE STUDIED BEFORE TAKING AN ONLINE QUIZ AND HAVE YOUR ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR, CONSTANTS SHEET AND PERIODIC TABLE AT HAND BEFORE STARTING THE QUIZ. At the end of the semester, the top ten scores of the 12 quizzes given will be kept. Note: all missed quizzes will result in a grade of zero, unless an excuse is obtained. In order to receive an excused grade, you must have a documented excuse or a letter from the Emergency Dean stating the reason why the quiz was not taken. If you receive an excused quiz grade, then an average grade of all your other quizzes will be assigned for the excused grade. HOUR EXAMS (HEI, II and III): 1. The dates of the three hour examinations are: Thursday, February 16; Thursday, March 15, and Thursday April 26. All exams are from 7:00-8:15 p.m. in rooms to be announced later. Conflict exams will be held at 5:00 p.m. on the same dates. You must sign up for conflict exams in advance outside 101 Chemistry Annex and bring a picture ID to the exam. 2. No alternate make-up exams will be given. If you must miss both the exam and the conflict exam; contact your TA or Dr. Marville immediately. Your exam score will be prorated if you have a valid, documented excuse (See University regulations). Solutions for the hour exams will be posted in Lon-capa under Exam Information. An excused absence is required for a missed Hour Examination. 3. Starting Friday, January 27and ending Friday, April 20 there will be an HOUR EXAM PREP class with Dr. Marville in Noyes Lab Room 165 from 1 to 1:50 p.m. Attendance is not mandatory and is meant to provide students with additional help with preparing for the three hour exams if needed. In these sessions, assistance will be provided in solving the problems found on the weekly worksheets under the heading Getting Ready for Hour Exam but other questions on lecture topics that week can be asked. Detailed answers to the Getting Ready for Hour Exam problems will not be posted in Lon-capa. There will be no Hour Exam Prep sessions held the days after Hour Examinations.
4. Hour exams will be written by the course instructor and will be multiple-choice, machinegraded exams. Scaled Hour Exam grades will be out of 100. I-CLICKER POINTS 20 points of your total points have been assigned via the i-clicker system. Please note that participation in lecture using an i-clicker is not mandatory but these 20 points are part of your final grade and can only be obtained using a registered i-clicker during question segments during lecture. Your i-clicker must be brought with you to every lecture. On the course s website you will find a link that must be used to register your i-clicker before the end of the first week of classes. Registration of your i-clicker is required in order that points can be assigned to you when you correctly answer questions posed during lecture using this i-clicker. Allowing others to use your i-clicker during lecture is considered an act of academic dishonesty. Please see http://admin.illinois.edu/policy/code/article1_part4_1-403.html for the penalties that are associated with academic dishonesty. 0.20 points will be awarded for participation in each lecture. These points are awarded the first time you use your clicker whether you answered the question posed correctly or not. 0.40 points per question will be awarded for answering an i-clicker question correctly. For example: If two i-clicker questions were asked in a lecture and you answer both of these questions correctly using your i-clicker then you would have earned 0.2 points for participation, i.e. when you first used your i-clicker and 0.8 points (0.4 pts each) for answering the two questions correctly for a total of 1 point that lecture. If two i-clicker questions were asked in a lecture and you answered both of these questions correctly using your i-clicker but only one of them was answered correctly then you would have earned 0.2 points for participation, i.e. when you first used your i-clicker and 0.4 points for answering the one question correctly for a total of 0.6 points that lecture. If two i-clicker questions were asked in a lecture and you answered both of these questions using your i-clicker but answered none of them correctly you would have earned 0.2 points only for participation, i.e. when you first used your i-clicker for a total of 0.2 points that lecture. Points will be totaled for i-clicker questions and points earned over 20 points will be bonus points added to your score. For example, if during a semester you accumulated 32 i-clicker points then 32-20 = 12 bonus points will be added to the points you have accumulated in CHEM102B. No i-clicker points will be awarded during the first week of lectures to provide you with sufficient time to register your i-clicker. A student can use only one i-clicker in CHEM 102B so if your i-clicker is stolen, lost or broken please let the lecturer know before purchasing another and if a new i-clicker is bought please let the professor know about it asap.
DISCUSSION SECTIONS The discipline of chemistry and of this course in particular demands that you take responsibility for your own learning. Before the start of every week a worksheet that contains problems on the topics that will be covered that week will be posted in Lon-capa. Major learning takes place during problem solving and therefore it is expected that you attempt worksheet problems BEFORE attending discussion sections. Problems you encountered while trying to solve these problems should be raised during the discussion section. Please remember that your TAs know the content being taught already! It is therefore useless for them to be the ones that are solving the problems on the worksheet while you merely copy the answer down to a question you read a few seconds ago. CHEMISTRY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SCIENCE! You have to do chemistry to understand it and thus simply reading the text or copying answers to your worksheets is not going to help you learn the material being taught. You must solve chemistry problems! Detailed answers only to the weekly worksheet problems will be posted in Lon-capa at the end of the day every Friday. FINAL EXAM A final exam is required of every student who wants to receive credit for the course. Excused students must take a make-up final early in the next semester. Due to University regulations, a valid excuse can only be obtained from the Dean of your college. At the end of the course only the raw final exam grade and the course letter grade will be shown in the online grade book. The final exam will be scaled and is worth 300 points. There will be no scaling of the overall points of the class. POLICY FOR RECEIVING EXCUSED GRADES: Since no make-up quizzes, exams or labs will be given, a student may receive an excused grade: a) For extenuating circumstances such as family related problems. In this case, the student has to notify the Emergency Dean (phone 333-0050). b) For medical reasons a valid excuse from McKinley or any other medical institution stating that the name of the student and that the student was confined for the day of the absence is acceptable and has to be presented to the course director for missed quizzes or to the Dean for missing the final exam. SUGGESTED ZUMDAHL 8TH EDITION PROBLEMS These problems will NOT be graded. Solutions to over one-half of the suggested problems in the textbook are available in a recommended supplement called the Partial Solutions Guide for Chemistry. Please use this resource in a mature way. Working backwards on a problem, i.e. from the answer to the question asked does not provide the practice required to gain proficiency and to perform well on exams. In order to acquire problem solving skills (numerical and conceptual), independent problem solving is required. Please note that all suggested problems in the syllabus are from the 8 th edition of Chemistry by the Zumdahls.
MISCELLANEOUS: 1. The Chemistry Learning Center, 212 CA, houses the chemistry educational computing service [interactive video lessons (for Chem 103) can be done there as well as online homework] and our tutoring facilities. At certain times, a Chemistry TA is on call there to answer questions and/or assist with problem solving. Also reference books such as The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and a variety of beginning textbooks are available. Learning Center Hours M-Th 8:30 a.m. - 10 p.m. Fri 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sat 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sun 1 p.m. - 8 p.m. Tutoring Hours M-F 9 am 4 pm 2. All grades in the course will be entered into an electronic grade book accessed from the course homepage for 102B. 3. The Power points that will be used in lecture (without the i-clickers that will be given and answers to problems that will be solved) will be made accessible through Lon-capa before lecture. Since we will be covering material very quickly, it is highly recommended, but not mandatory, that you print these Power points and bring them to lecture. This way you can concentrate on material being presented during lecture instead of furiously taking notes. 4. Detailed Power points for certain topics covered will also be made available at the end of the week of that lecture(s) and will be accessible through Lon-capa. 5. Staff located in the Fred H. Turner Student Services Building, 601 E. John Street, offer a counseling service for emotional problems, test anxiety and study skills. For critical problems and emergencies call the Emergency Dean at 333-0050. 6. If you have difficulty with any part of the course, please see the course instructor or your TA promptly. Remember this course is taught very quickly and so it is imperative that you promptly address any problems you are having with the material being taught. Despite the fact that my office hours are stated on the front page of this document, I also have an open door policy approach, i.e. if my door is open, and at that time I am not with a student or staff member, please feel free to enter my office for help. If I am unavailable please e-mail me at marville@illinois.edu or leave a message with your name and telephone number on my answering machine and I will return your call as soon as possible. 7. Each lecture period requires on average two to three hours of study time. Your TA will also offer extra help during his/her office hours. Please find out when these hours are and attend them for extra help.
How Does the Grade Book Calculate My Total Number of Points Out of 1000? In this class your point total will be available in the student grade book until just before the Final Exam. The point total after the Final Exam will NOT be posted, just your letter grade. Below are how the points for CHEM 102B assigned: Online Homework I-clicker points Quizzes (15 points each, best 10/12 quizzes are kept) Hour Exams (150 pts. each) Final Exam Total 80 pts. 20 pts. 150 pts. 450 pts. 300 pts. 1000 pts. Example: Say before the final a student has the following (total points at this time will be 700 points as 1000-300 points for the final exam = 700): Points earned by student Scaled HEI: 90/100 Scaled HEII: 85/100 Scaled HEIII: 75/100 Points assigned by grade book and course For Hour exam I to be out of 150 multiply both 100 and 90 by 1.5 to obtain a grade of 135/150 For Hour exam II to be out of 150 multiply both 100 and 85 by 1.5 to obtain a grade of 127.5/150 For Hour exam III to be out of 150 multiply both 100 and 75 by 1.5 to obtain a grade of 112.5/150 Homework: 90/100 For Homework to be out of 80 multiply both (Say total Homework points is 100) 100 and 90 by 0.8 to obtain a grade of 72/80 Homework is NOT scaled Total of best ten quizzes: 130/150 For quizzes: 130/150 Quizzes are NOT scaled i-clickers: 28 points For i-clickers:28/20 (student earned 8 extra points) i-clicker points are NOT scaled Total points out of 700 that would appear in the grade book: 135 + 127.5 + 112.5 + 72 + 130 + 28 = 605/700