Syllabus for Chemistry 101

General Chemistry 101 Sections 4220 and 4221  Fall 2005

Instructor: Dr. Nadene Houser-Archield
Office: CH 310J
Phone: 301 386 7593
E-Mail: nhouser_archield@pgcc.edu
Office hours: MW 10:00am - 11:40am, T 4:00pm –  5:40pm  

Class Meeting Times:         Lec      MW       1:00 - 2:15     CH 114

                                    4220    Lab      M           2:30 - 5:20     CH 312   

                                    4221    Lab      W          2:30 - 5:20     CH 312

                                    4220    Rec      W        12:00 - 12:50   CH 307

                                    4221    Rec      M         12:00 - 12:50   CH 307

                                    Final Exam:  Wednesday, December 14, 2004 1:00pm - 3:00pm, CH 114 

Course Materials:
            Textbook:         Chemistry, McMurray and Fay, 4^th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2004
                                        ISBN: 0-13-140221-8
            Lab manual:      Discovering the Chemical World (Lab Manual), /Gage/Sinex/Basili 2003. The manual can be downloaded from http://academic.pgcc.edu/psc
            Scientific Calculator (Strongly suggest TI 83 or TI 83 Plus)
            Blackboard notes, exercises and handouts.  For directions go to http://www.pgcconline.com ; select Announcements for Students.

            Visit the Department of Physical Sciences and Engineering website at            http://academic.pgcc.edu/psc

Welcome to Chemistry 101!

            This course is designed to immerse you in the basic tenets of inorganic chemistry. Laboratories, lectures, workshops and demonstrations will be the modes of information dispersal and skill acquisition. 

            In order to be successful, read the chapters (prior to lecture is best), attend each lab, lecture and workshop, do the suggested homework problems and join/form a regularly meeting study group. You will need between 10 and 20 hours of study (outside of class time) per  week!!!

            I am available during office hours and by appointment. Also, the College provides free tutoring services by appointment on the third floor of Accokeek Hall. Stop in or call 322-0748 for an appointment.  I strongly suggest forming study groups; those students who are strong in chemistry enhance their knowledge by teaching others; those who are weak in chemistry enhance their knowledge by being exposed to the way others view the course concepts.

            Quizzes, exams, performance tasks, recitations, labs and the final exam will not be made up.  Cheating on an assessment will result in a grade of zero for that assessment; the cheating will be reported to the Dean. 

Bring your calculator with you to lecture, recitation and lab. 

Chemistry 101 course objectives:

  Grading Scale:  A = 90-100%
                                           B = 80-89%    
                                           C = 70-79%    
                                           D = 60-69%       
                                            F = 59% and below or insufficient labs or final exam not taken

Note 1:            All labs are required!  If you perform fewer than 90% of the labs you will receive a grade of F in the course.

Note 2:            If you do not take the final exam, you will receive a grade of F in the course.

Note 3:            Assignments are due during the first minute of class.  Late assignments, if accepted, will be heavily penalized.

Assessment                                     Percentage of grade

Exams                                                                          30%

Quizzes                                                                          20%

Performance Task labs                                             20%

Final Exam                                                                   20%

Personal Responses/homework/group work                  10%

During in class and/or laboratory assessments: You may not exit the room until you have completed and handed in the assessment.You may not share calculators. You may not use cell phones as calculators nor to receive calls.

Tentative Course Schedule

                                                               M                                            W

My Philosophy
The numbers of students majoring in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines is declining as nationwide the dropout/failure rate in STEM  courses, particularly in large lecture courses, averages 50% or higher. This trend must be reversed or it will harm our society, as we will have a shortage of qualified STEM professionals. 

I combine elements of Piaget, Arlin, Hebb, Bloom and Bruner’s theories with some of my own reflections. I believe there are four domains of learning in order of increasing importance:

1) the physical = 2) the cognitive = 3) the emotional < 4) the spiritual.

It is important to guard against sacrificing development in some domains in order to excel in other domains; when such is done, the result is imbalanced people. 

Although not everyone will be a chemist, I want ours to be a literate and well educated society in which everyone has a helpful understanding of chemistry. I’d also like ours to be a progressive society in which one generation makes it easier for the next to progress.

 Because of the separation of church and state, teachers in public institutions do not address the spiritual; however, teachers must cultivate student development in the physical, cognitive and emotional domains.  If it is taught well, most undergraduate chemistry students have the ability to flourish at Benjamin Bloom’s knowledge, comprehension, application and analysis levels. 

 Vision:
Students will emerge from this course with
a) Critical thinking skills that allow them to confidently assess, develop approaches to, and solve unfamiliar and familiar problems
b) A sense of belonging and community at PGCC and in society
c) Motivation to higher educational achievement (derived from successful experiences in my course)

 Mission:
Students will engage in hands-on/active/discovery and real learning problem solving experiences, many of which involve collaboration with their peers. 

Goals and objectives:

Goal 1:  Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Critical Thinking objectives:

 Pertaining to a problem, students will
            a) Employ hands-on active learning and discovery exercises involving real models* that are familiar parts of their life’s experience, to solve problems and subsequently
            b) Construct their own knowledge/ arrive at their own conclusions
            c) Gather/research already known facts/information/data pertaining to a proble
            d) Define/describe/label/list/outline/state known terms/facts/methods/procedures/concepts and principles associated with the problem
            e) Break problems/questions/situations down into component smaller problems/questions/situations
            f) Generate/devise/formulate/design/organize/create and carry out schemes/experiments/approaches/methods/procedures/tasks for generating data/gathering information needed to solve problems/answer questions/assess situations
            g) Compile/organize/categorize/outline gathered data/information/facts an
            h) Analyze it by diagramming/ comparing/relating/differentiating/contrasting/discriminating/separating/sub-dividing it in order to
            i) Discover/recognize/identify/interpret patterns/relationships among narrative/listed/charted/graphed data/facts/information, then
            j) Draw mental/narrative/verbal conclusions:  formulate or develop generalizations/rules/principles/methods/procedures and/or
            k) Convert/translate them into mathematical formulas (and vice versa)          
            l) Evaluate/test conclusions/ generalizations/rules/principles/methods/procedures and mathematical formulas
            m) Use valid conclusions/ generalizations/rules/principles/methods/procedures and mathematical formulas to
            n) Compute/calculate/determine/demonstrate/predict outcomes in familiar and unfamiliar situations

 Goal 2: Develop a Sense of Community
            Objectives:      
                        During and as a result of collaborative work, students will
            a) Obtain a sense of community/belonging/connectedness with lab and/or activity partners subsequently/ultimately this will
            b) Promote their sense of community/belonging/connectedness at the college
            c) Value collaborative exchange/brainstorming
            d) Bounce their perceptions and ideas off of others without fear of being ridiculed 

Goal 3:  Motivation
            Objectives:  Students will
                        a) Have repeated successful experiences solving challenging problems.
                        b) Acquire confidence from their successes.
                        c) Take on other challenging courses with confidence in their acquired problem solving skills 

* Real learning activities incorporate familiar models (models that are a part of each student’s life’s experience), as in the teaching of concepts.