CH1CC1NU-Chemical Concepts and Skills 1 (NUIST)

Module Provider: Chemistry
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:4
Terms in which taught: Autumn / Spring / Summer module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2019/0

Module Convenor: Prof Matthew Almond

Email: m.j.almond@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module is designed to  help students develop the independent learning skills necessary for higher level studies and to introduce students to the concepts of open and closed types of problem solving and help them develop effective problem-solving strategies. The module will help students to develop self-study skills to enable them to research an unknown topic, learn about it and solve a problem based upon it and to familiarise students with a range of resources for researching unknowns. A further aim of the module is to help students develop effective time management, organisation and team working skills and to give students practice and support in written and oral communication and to develop scientific writing skills. The module will also allow students to begin to consider career plans and prepare applications for industrial placements and internships.

 

Aims:

To help students develop the independent learning skills necessary for higher level studies.

To introduce students to the concepts of open and closed types of problem solving and help them develop effective problem-solving strategies.

To help students develop self-study skills to enable them to research an unknown topic, learn about it and solve a problem based upon it.

To introduce students to a range of programmes and packages used routinely by chemists.

To familiarise students with a range of resources for researching unknowns.

To help students develop effective time management, organisation and team working skills.

To give students practice and support in written and oral communication and to develop scientific writing skills.

To introduce the Undergraduate Skills Record as a mechanism for professional development planning and reflection.

To begin to consider career plans and prepare applications for industrial placements and internships.

 

Assessable learning outcomes:

Students should be able to:

Tackle unseen problems and devise strategies for solving them.

Make predictions and ‘guesstimates’ based on sound scientific knowledge or data.

Extract and manipulate numerical data.

Organise themselves and team members to communicate in appropriate ways or through appropriate media.

Access a variety of resources including the chemical literature to obtain data and summarise findings.

Construct a reasoned argument to arrive at a valid solution to a problem.

Write a report using suitable scientific language to justify the methods used to solve the problem and the results.

Present the findings and results orally.

Additional outcomes:

Students will improve their research, organisational, time management, team working, IT and oral communication skills. Students will be encouraged to think creatively, identify trends in data and ignore superfluous information. Students will learn to make value judgments about their own work and the work of peers. In addition they will improve their numeracy skills.

Outline content:

Students will be presented with a series of problems throughout the course of the module, and given preliminary sources to investigate in order to solve the problems. They will be expected to work in set teams, to analyse the problem, to decide upon an approach, to research the given sources and explore others. The problems will not necessarily have right or wrong answers. Students will be assessed on their approach to the problems and where relevant the quality of their answers.

 

Introduction: Thinking outside the box.

 

An introduction to skills development and the role of academic tutor meetings. Introduction to team working, the Blackboard site and assessment format for the module. An introduction to unseen problem solving in a scientific context. Problem solving in teams. Group oral presentations.

 

 

Challenge 1: Chemical Elements in the Real World

 

This challenge involves students researching suitable elements to fulfill various real world applications and investigating the properties of the elements they identify and explaining their function in terms of properties and position in the Periodic Table. Effective group working. Group work. Feedback on challenge.

 

 

Challenge 2: Organic Chemistry

 

Students will research the reason behind the reactivity of the carbonyl group and will build on their existing knowledge of carbonyl reactions by classifying a set of given reactions into 1 of 3 general mechanism groups. These fundamental principles will be applied to a context based problem. Using a laboratory notebook. Introduction to software for drawing molecular structures. Avoiding Plagiarism and using Turnitin. Introduction to précis writing. Workshops.

 

Challenge 3: Physical Chemistry and IT Skills- How spectroscopy can prove how many molecules fit in a matchbox.

 

Students will research topics such as moments of inertia, reduced mass, angular momentum etc and use their findings about rotational and infra-red spectroscopy to work out how many molecules would fit in a matchbox. Students will develop skills in the use of Excel spreadsheets by independent directed self-learning. They will utilise this knowledge as part of the completion of the physical chemistry challenge. Self-directed work on using Excel spreadsheets. Problem solving.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

The module will be delivered by introductory talks for each topic. A Blackboard site will be provided giving links and information about all the resources recommended for solving the problem. Students will be expected to research and précis appropriate literature and to discuss findings within teams or by Wikis. Opportunities are built into the module for students to approach staff for guidance and feedback. Student feedback will be delivered at the plenary sessions for oral presentations and via written comments or podcasts on Blackboard for the formal report summaries.

Contact hours:

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Lectures	12	10
Seminars		4
Practicals classes and workshops	2
Guided independent study:
Group study tasks	86	86
Total hours by term	100	100	0
Total hours for module	200

Summative Assessment Methods:

Method	Percentage
Oral assessment and presentation	17.5
Set exercise	82.5

Summative assessment- Examinations:

Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

This module is continually assessed,

 

Each challenge will have a variety of assessment methods and criteria.

Thinking outside the box: Formatively assessed by peer and staff feedback on presentation.

Challenge 1 (Inorganic Challenge): 35%

A group poster. Assessed by staff.

A 5 minute group presentation, summatively assessed by staff. Mark adjusted according to individual contribution to group determined by peer assessment.

Challenge 2 (Organic Challenge): 10%

Assessed by feedback on preliminary work and completion of workshop.

Precis: 20%

A half page summary précis exercise summatively assessed by staff.

Challenge 3 (Physical Challenge): 35%

A group report: a summary of the nature of the problem, how they approached it, how they solved it, a description of their solution and an evaluation of confidence in their result.

The group mark for the report will be adjusted for each individual according to anonymous peer assessment by other group members of the contribution made by the individual.

Formative assessment methods:

Thinking outside the box – group work and presentation

Team working workshop and feedback

Penalties for late submission:
The Module Convener will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day[1] (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of five working days;

where the piece of work is submitted more than five working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/qualitysupport/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf
You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Assessment requirements for a pass:

A mark of 40% overall

Reassessment arrangements:

Two extended individual summary reports to be written on topics other than the original ones.

Additional Costs (specified where applicable):

Last updated: 11 September 2019