There has been a general dissatisfaction among some faculty at many institutions for some time in the more-or-less traditional "cookbook" type of General Chemistry course. A common thread suggests that "the opportunity to excite students and show them how real science is done [is] squander(ed)".¹

This Honors and Majors course is the first at Temple University to engage the problem at the Freshman level.

Additionally, there is now a great deal of evidence that the process of "Cooperative Learning" profits most students. It is hoped that this class will provide the Chemistry Department with some evidence for its value here. The text book chosen for the laboratory is M. M. Cooper Cooperative Chemisty, McGraw-Hill 1996 which is available at the T.U. Bookstore. You must also bring a hard bound laboratory notebook and safety glasses to class and a Safety Release Form found in the Student Guide to CST Laboratory Safety.The Guide can be obtained from the Copy Center in Conwell Hall, Room 601.

In addition to the textbook ( M. M. Cooper Cooperative Chemisty, McGraw-Hill) library resources found in the Chemistry Department Library and on the World Wide Web may prove useful in this course. Use should be made of the site for Honors and Majors Chemistry Students (which will only work from on campus or using point-to-point protocol [ppp] access). Simulated experiments can be found there. Some web resources² which you might find useful include (but are not limited to):

• Science learning network ...http://www.sln.org/
• Chem 111 - University of Massachusetts ...http://www.chem.umass.edu/genchem/chem111/111index.htm
• Webercises (Wiley) ... http://www.wiley.com/college/webercises/
• Education Index ...http://www.educationindex.com/chem/
• General Chemistry Online ...http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/
• NCSA ChemViz ...http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Edu/ChemViz/curr.html
• Online Data bases from the NIST ...http://www.nist.gov/srd/online.htm
• Chem-help at Temple ...http://www.temple.edu/chem-help.

The laboratory work in this course is divided into a series of projects. As outlined below there will be four (4) projects to be completed in the first semester. The first laboratory period will be devoted to a discussion of the goals and objectives of the course, checking into the laboratory, investigating some of the equipment available in the laboratory, and organizing the class into teams. Team members will be introduced to each other and roles in the team assigned. (Although you will stay with the group throughout the semester, your role in the group will vary with each assignment.) Subsequent laboratory sessions will adhere to the schedule appended below.

THE TEAM APPROACH¹

As our society becomes more complex, it is becoming clear that most problems that beset us can no longer be solved in a reasonable amount of time by single individuals working alone. So, learning to work as part of a team is an important undertaking.

In our individualistic society, working as part of a team is often found to be difficult because members of the team are expected to rely upon each other to solve problems cooperatively. Today, widespread cooperation is particularly true in the sciences where an individual laboratory often cannot house all of the equipment necessary for the solution to every problem. Therefore, although this is a course in problem solving, it enjoys the added complexity of attempting to utilize a team approach to solve the problems. Thus, each team will be presented with a problem and the members of the team will need to devise their own experiments, test their own hypotheses and evaluate their own data. Although all of the teams will have the same problems, it is anticipated that different teams will find different solutions.

As noted above your role in the team will change. At some time you are expected to assume the role of:

• A Team Leader : responsible for overall supervision of the team and (s)he assures that all members contribute equally.

• An Assistant Team Leader : assumes the role of the Team Leader when (s)he is absent and is responsible for completion of all materials to be submitted by the group in a way that reflects the thinking of all team members

• A Record Keeper: keeps records of all materials discussed and is responsible for informing absent team members of progress made.

• A Team Counselor: assumes the role of the Record Keeper if (s)he is absent and is responsible for making sure all team members agree on a proposed course of action.

PROCEDURAL OUTLINE

During the first week of lab, you will be assigned to a group. You will then spend some time getting to know the members of your group and aquainting yourselves with the laboratory and various places in the building where facilities to support your enquiries are housed (library, computer room , etc.). You will also be given your first project and will spend whatever time remains of the rest of the laboratory period working on your project. At the beginning of the next laboratory period your group will hand in a brief (200 - 400 words) written preliminary proposal describing how your team anticipates carrying out the project. The proposal should explain what you intend to do, why you intend to it, and how you will deal with the results. It has been suggested ¹ that you will almost certainly need to modify your preliminary proposal during the work. This preliminary plan will count for 10 points of the total grade of the first project and, along with an oral report and final summary, will be the only portion of your grade which will be assigned to the group as a whole.

During the next two weeks, your group will continue investigations into your project and at the beginning of week four, you will each hand in a separate report on the progress made to date. Each member of the group will write a separate report and will receive feedback the following week. The final report for the project will be due from each member of the group the week following the final lab period of each project.

Each project is evaluated separately. The total grade for the course is the average of the project grades.

GRADING:

Each project will be graded along the following outline: