Messages from Prof. Tyson
Monday May 29th 2006 2:24 pm. You are getting this message because you are, with the exception of Thomas Hong in Group 11, all still registered for this class according to the roster on SPIRE that I downloaded a few minutes ago. I have updated the composition of the groups and this is now available on the website (http://courses.umass.edu/chemh01/) if you want to check the number of the group you are in. There has been some confusion over the identities of groups 5, and 6.
There are a small number of students who are still on the roster, but who probably thought they had withdrawn. They are: Nicole Cameron, Lana Peckham, Lindsey Warnock and Kevin Ornellas. You will get a NR (not recorded) grade, but you will need to do something about getting this course removed from your transcript. You can start by asking Marie Whalen, the Chemistry Undergraduate Program Manager, (marie@chem.umass.edu) about the paperwork that is needed.
As of the time of writing, having double checked my e-mail inboxes I think I am missing the following material.
1. Group reports: Groups 8 and 11. Reports from Groups 1 and 7 are incomplete.
2. Individual reports on the group members participation: Jeff Robin, Mark Fitzgerald, Mariglen Yskollari, Nazita Gamini, Paul Nardi, Narinder Waraich, Judy Cheng, Dan Jeannotte, Alec Harackiewicz and Jonah Zimmerman.
3. Questionnaires: Jeff Robin, Mark Fitzgerald, Mariglen Yskollari, Anudha Mittal, Narinder Waraich, Judy Cheng, Alec Harackiewicz, and Jonah Zimmerman.
My apologies, if you really did send your material and I have lost it or misfiled it. Please send again.
If nothing changes by the deadline (noon on May 31st) all members of groups 8 and 11, together with the above individuals will get a NR (not recorded). Changing this to a letter grade has to be done on an individual basis and will take some time, as it has to be done by written memorandum.
Hope to hear from some of you real soon.
Wednesday May 17th 2006 9:38 am. Just a reminder that we meet, for those not otherwise engaged with review sessions and the such like, on Thursday 5/18 at 4:30 pm in LGRT 103. The agenda is to recieve presentations from each group on the outcome of the work this semester.
Attached to this message is a Word file containing the questionnaire (it is also available at the website). Please answer as many of the questions as are relevant and return to me by the deadline (5/26 midnight). Each person involved (apart from the grad students) should return one of these to me as part of the requirements for grading. Many thanks.
Monday May 8th 2006. 10:38 pm. As I will be out of town of May 16th and would miss the presentations if they were held then, I am proposing that we reschedule our last meeting of the semester to the afternoon of Thursday May 18th at 4:30 pm in LGRT 103 (same room). I appreciate that this may not work for everyone as it is reading day and instructors may be holding help sessions and the such like. Just to remind you, there are no penalties for not being able to attend these all-project meetings.
I'm looking forward to hearing (and seeing) what you have been doing this semester.
Monday May 8th 2006. As we are nearing the end of the semester, here is some more detailed information about the reporting and grading. (with apologies to those of you on the mailing lists who are not involved in the arsenic project).
Deadline Friday 5/26 (midnight)
There are 4 parts to this message. Be sure you read all of them. 1. Each group creates one report. 2. Each participant writes an evaluation of the contribution of other group members. 3. Each participant also answers some questions in an evaluation questionnaire that I will circulate separately. 4. I assign grades based on criteria described below.
Part 1. Each group should write a report of their project in the form of a short article in a chemistry journal. It should contain the following sections:
Title
Names and addresses of authors. Date document submitted.
Abstract
Introduction
Experimental
Results and Discussion
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References
The “Results and Discussion” section should include any tables and figures (including pictures) that are relevant. Each table should have a title (above it) and each figure should have a caption below it. You may want to include a figure in the experimental section if you include something that is best described by a picture.
Some further help on what each of these sections contains is available elsewhere on the website in the form of a detailed description of the various components of a manuscript that a graduate student might write for submission to a journal. There are also some examples of previous reports available at on site, though these are not offered as models.
The entire document should be submitted to me (tyson@chem.umass.edu) as a Microsoft Word document. Include your group number in the title of the document. Following minor editing if needed, I will convert this to a pdf file and post on the course website. The site will not disappear after the end of the semester.
Part 2. Each participant needs to submit (by e-mail) a confidential, signed (put your name and student ID# at the bottom) memorandum to me in which you explain (a) what your role in your group activities has been, and (b) what the contributions of the other undergraduate student members (from all the different classes) of the group have been. List each student by name and explain what he or she did (or did not) do. Include your name and group number in the title of the document.
Part 3. A questionnaire will be distributed later with some specific questions. There will also be an opportunity for you to provide unstructured feedback, if you wish, and you can indicate whether you would be interested in participating again at some future stage and what the format of any such participation might be.
Part 4. Grading. I do not plan to try to be discriminating in the grading other than as follows:
Full credit (A): a good faith effort to participate, taking a fair share of the workload, meeting with other members of the group, willing to cooperate, and submission of (a) a project report, (b) an evaluation of other members of the group and (c) a completed questionnaire.
Less than full credit (B): less than full participation, as defined by other members of the group,
Even less (C): minimal participation (as defined by other members of the group), uncooperative (as defined by other members of the group),
INC: no participation at all, or failure to submit one of the required reports. In due course, an “INComplete” will morph into an F, unless there is an intervention.
Monday March 27th 9:00 am Thanks for the reports on how to measure arsenic (I will try to put them up on the website shortly) and for the reports on the activities of the various members of your groups. I sent an acknowledgement e-mail to everyone who sent me a message, so if you didn't get a response it means that I did not get your communication (or that I missed it in the large number of messages that arrive at once when I am traveling). Please send again.
The next stage in the project is the creation of the proposal and some commentary on this and what is need for the arsenic project is in the attached Word document, which is also posted on the site. The deadline is midnight on April 9th.
Don't forget that we have an all-project meeting on Tuesday April 11th (7:00 pm in LGRT 103) at which each group will make a presentation of their proposal.
Thursday March 9th 10:20 pm Many thanks to all the groups for the first document on your particular background topic. I will be putting these up on the website soon. This is a reminder about the all-group meeting next Tuesday (3/14) at 7:00 pm in LGRT 103. The agenda will be to receive a short presentations (with PowerPoint images) from each group on their background topic.
I know that some participants cannot be there because of exams or conference attendance. That's OK.
I have now posted some more information about the next report on the measurement of arsenic at the website. This can also be downloaded as a pdf file and is also attached to this message. This is due by midnight on March 16th.
Also due by March 16th is a (very) brief report on the contributions by the other members of your group. All I need is an e-mail message with one sentence about each of the other members of your group.
I have posted an updated version of the composition of the groups. We have lost one or two folk, but there are still 47 of you invovled.
It will save time on Tuesday if you can e-mail me your PPT presentation prior to the meeting. If not, bring it on a flash drive. I am not confident that I can access the internet from the room so downloading from a remote site may be difficult. Each group gets 3-4 minutes plus time for a question or two, so you only need 3 - 4 PPT images.
A couple of e-mail communication items: put "As project spring 2006" in the subject line, and if you send me an attachment, give it a unique title (such as BkgdPprGroup 1). Getting 10 or 11 attachments all called "background paper" is confusing. So don't apply for a job and attach a file called "resume.doc"; put your name in there somewhere otherwise your file will get "lost".
Thanks,
Sunday February 12th 7:35 pm. I have now made the group assignments and these together with the topics for each group are posted on the website (http:// courses.umass.edu/chemh01/). I have also posted a timeline of how the program will develop over the semester. I have assigned each group a background topic and a measurement topic. These are similar to, but not identical to, those investigated by former groups.
The program goes something like this: 1. Groups find information on a relevant topic and write a report that can be posted on the website (4.5 weeks) . 2. Groups find information on some aspect of how to measure arsenic (6.5 weeks). 3. Groups come up with a plan, make some preliminary measurements, and write a proposal (8.5 weeks). 4. Groups conduct reseach and write a final report (15.5 weeks). Each document is a group effort and will be posted on the website
Each member of the group writes an individual report on the contribution of other members (one to two sentences about each other member) part way through (6 weeks) and again at the end (15.5 weeks). Also due at the end, is a completed questionnaire.
We will meet as an entire program (for those who can make it) on four Tuesday evenings (7:00 pm - 8:00 pm) throughout the semster in GSMN 51. The dates are Feb 21st, March 14th, April 11th, and May 16th. There is some flexibility about this so if it turns out that lots of folk can't come for some reason, we'll try to reschedule. I'll do most of the talking at the first meeting; but at each of the others, one of the Chem. 122H student members of each group will make a short (3-5 minute) oral presentation (with PowerPoint visual aids). The topics of the presentations will be (3/14) background and measurement, (4/11) proposal, and (5/16) results.
I will be providing more detailed written guidelines in due course for most of the activities. These won't be so different from those that are already posted on the website for the fall 2005 program. The guidlines for the background paper are already posted.
I hope you enjoy the experience.
Febraury 5th 3:26 pm 2006 As I indicated when I visited your class on Friday (if you are a Chem 122H student) I have now compiled a list of those who are interested and am sending a message to everyone on it. You should see everyone's e-mail address at the top of this message. There are 30 Chem 122H students and 2 Chem 312 students who have expressed an interest. I am expecting more from the Chem. 312 class by the end of the week.
If you know of someone who is intersted but you don't see their e-mail address in the list, please indicate to him or her that I do not have any communication from them and tell them to contact me asap. (I think it is OK to use "them" as a substitute for "him or her" in informal writing, such as e-mail messages, but not in formal writing.)
There will be 11 groups this semester, just as there were last semester. The topics will be much the same, I expect. I have asked my graduate students to tell me if they have any particular topic they would like to work on and so there may be one or two changes.
I will be posting the assignments of groups and topics on the website in a few days time, and I'll e-mail you to let you know that this has happened. As a general strategy, I put copies of my e-mail messages on the website so that you can check to see that you are receiving things that I send out. So far no-one has given me anything other than an "@student" address, and so there will probably not be any issues. It is usually the "@yahoo" and the such like addresses that give problems.
I'll work on tidying up the site so that the spring 2006 version of the project gets greater prominence.
More in due course.