Resources for getting assistance with your work:

 

Office hours

Office hours are a great resource for getting assistance with your work. You are strongly encouraged to attend office hours frequently. They are a great opportunity to work through problem in groups, get support from course instructors, and ask questions. Note: you do not need to have a question or an appointment to attend these open hours. Rather, come frequently and maximize your effort by getting support. These tutorial sessions are helpful for all students

The calendar below displays all of the upcoming office hours for CH111 lab. You can add this calendar to your computer or smartphone's calendar application by clicking on the "+GoogleCalendar" link on the bottom right corner of the calendar.

 

Tips and hints for success

While many students enter college already well-versed in chemical theory, they often find themselves lacking in some of the fundamentals of experimental techniques. This course is designed to walk a student through the basics of analytical chemistry. There is no pre-requisite knowledge of lab techniques, but they will build-up quickly.

Make sure to use the course staff (and their office hours) and study groups to get the answers to any questions that you have. The best approach is to always make sure that you know what you are doing, and why you are doing it, and if you don’t understand something then ask questions.

In the past, students have best been able to manage their workload with good time management. Students should be reading the textbook and lab manual before their lecture on Monday. Pre-lab assignments, and notebook pages, are best completed soon after lecture in order be prepared for lab. Break-up working on the post-lab assignment: consider doing the data analysis in the day or two after the lab period, and then polishing/completing the assignment (sometimes with help at office hours) later in the week.

An important note about getting answers to your questions: e-mail is not a replacement for office hours. While instructors will certainly respond to personal, private, and urgent matters by email, they will not be regularly answering content-related questions by email. To get answers from instructors, please attend any of the office hours.

 

Course learning resources

Concept videos

Lectures are generally recorded and posted on the EchoCenter (access through the course BlackBoard site).

In addition to the recorded lectures, a series of short videos have been recorded and posted online (click here). These videos are arranged by topic category (lab fundamentals, spectroscopy, general chemistry concepts, etc.) and are available for your use in reviewing concepts and extending your understanding. Also, suggestions of videos that are useful for specific labs are give on the course schedule.

Lab Research Notebooks

Proper academic and industrial lab practices require that all work in labs be done directly from a lab research notebook. To begin developing these skills, all lab work for this course will be done in a research notebook, and the duplicate pages are submitted to your instructor before leaving the lab. Consequently, use of this lab manual will not be permitted in class during the experiment, but you can refer to it during the analysis at the end of labs.

A detailed guide to preparing lab research notebooks can be found at the beginning of your lab manual or here

Post-lab Assignments

After completing an experiment, you will be expected to complete and submit a post-lab assignment. These assignments will generally be either (a) a series of questions related to the lab and your data, or (b) a scholarly paper. Post-lab assignments are individual work only and will generally be due before the start of the next lab period. Exact due dates will be announced.

A detailed guide to preparing high-quality post-lab assignments can be found at the beginning of your lab manual or here. Also, lab 1 in your manual covers many details of good practices for preparing these assignments.


Updated Tuesday, July 30, 2019 10:38 PM