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- Points for Each Course Component
- End-of-Semester Grade Determination
- Grading Penalties
- Lab Absences and Failure to Complete Lab Project Summaries
- Noncompliance with Lab Safety Regulations
- Late Lab Project Summaries
- Cheating
- Caution About Working in a Lab Team
- Criteria for Grading Lab Project Summaries
- Questions About How Your Papers Were Graded
- Estimated Grade Ranges: first-quarter; mid-semester; third-quarter; before final exam
- Copy of Your Scores from WebCT
Course Components Which Determine Your Grade
| Course Component | Points Assigned |
|---|---|
| Exams (3 at 120 pts each) | 360 |
| Final Exam (comprehensive) | 220 |
| Quizzes (6 at 10 pts each) | 60 |
| Homework (7 at 20 pts each) | 140 |
| Laboratory (best 11 of 12 at 20 pts each) | 220 |
| TOTAL | 1000 |
How Course Grades Will be Determined
Your course grade will be determined based on your performance. Decisions about points required for each grade range are not decided by student folklore or rumors or by graduate instructors.
At the end of the semester, the total scores for all students will be arranged in numerical order, the score that corresponds to either the 99th or 98th percentile (S99 or S98) will be determined, and then letter grades will be assigned based on this percentile score as follows:
Letter Grade |
Method for Determination |
|---|---|
A |
Total Score > or = to 0.90 x S99 (or S98) |
B |
0.80 x S99 (or S98) <= Total Score < 0.90 x S99 (or S98) |
C |
0.70 x S99 (or S98) <= Total Score < 0.80 x S99 (or S98) |
D |
0.60 x S99 (or S98) <= Total Score < 0.70 x S99 (or S98) |
F |
Total Score < 0.60 x S99 (or S98) |
At various times during the semester, this approach will be used to create tentative grading scales that you can use to see how well you are doing at those points in the course.
This system has several advantages. It lets you know several times during the semester how you are doing in the course. Unlike a curved scale, it encourages cooperation among students because no student is penalized when another is successful. Unlike an absolute scale, it tends to neutralize the effects of differences in the difficulty of exams (and quizzes if given) from one semester to another and thereby ensures that the same criteria are used to assign grades from one semester to another.
This approach to grading means that the grade you get in this course depends primarily on your own effort and performance. It also ensures that all students who do well in the course will get good grades.
You will automatically earn a grade of "F" in CHM 123 this semester if you
- miss three (3) or more of the 12 scheduled laboratory sessions (weeks 2 - 15) without excused absences OR
- fail to complete three (3) or more of the 12 scheduled laboratory projects. Completion of a lab project includes the following equally important components:
- attendance in the laboratory
- helping with the laboratory work and the preparation of the lab project report
- completion and timely submission of a satisfactory project summary report. Failure to submit a lab report counts as a missed lab.
Noncompliance with Lab Safety Regulations If your graduate instructor, the course supervisor or any other chemistry department representative dismisses you from lab because your are in violation of safety or dress regulations, you will receive a score of "zero" for that lab and it will count as a "Failure to Complete" lab.
Late Lab Reports Lab project summaries will be due when the TAs must close the lab, that is at 5:40 pm the day that lab work is completed. Graduate instructors do not have authority to change the date or time when work is due.
Ten (10) points, 50% of the maximum points, will be deducted from the score of both students for any lab project summary that is up to 24 hours late. No laboratory report will be accepted and graded beyond 24 hours after the report is due and both students (or the entire group) will receive a score of zero for that lab and it will count as a failure to complete.
Caution about Working With a Partner You will be working with a lab partner for most of the laboratory projects. Working with others has been shown to increase learning. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to working with others just as there are advantages and disadvantages to working alone.
When each pair is to turn in one project summary, we encourage you to discuss concepts with other members of your class but the lab project summaries must be unique efforts by you and your partner. Both you and your partner share the responsibility for writing project summaries that honestly reflect your work. It is also your responsibility as a group to ensure that everyone whose name is on the report participated in preparing it.
If any student(s) forfeits the responsibility of writing a report to his/her lab partner and the partner changes or falsifies data or plagiarizes parts of the report, then both partners share the negative consequences associated with academic dishonesty, that is, cheating.
Grading Questions If you have a question about the score on any of your graded papers, first ask your graduate instructor for clarification. If the graduate instructor cannot answer your questions, you may take the graded paper to the course supervisor in BRWN 1144 for possible regrading. You will need to do this within one (1) week after receiving the graded paper. Your work will have to have been typewritten or written in ink for a possible regrade. The course supervisor will regrade the entire paper, not just the part where you think an error has been made.