Organic Lecture Syllabus - Fall 2009 PDF
Organic Lab Syllabus - Fall 2009 PDF
Organic Lab Schedule - Fall 2009 PDF
I have been teaching organic chemistry lectures and laboratories at APSU since 1983. During that time we have used the Solomons, McMurry, Wade, and Morrison and Boyd organic chemistry texts for the lecture class and the Roberts/Wingrove and Fessenden/Fessenden organic experimental books. We are currently using McMurry's 7th edition for lecture. I have written a lab text that has been used (beginning Fall 1999 semester) along with Zubrick's 7th edition of the Organic Chem Lab Survival Manual. Students are required to keep individual laboratory notebooks following a handout that I have prepared. Laboratories are macroscale using 24/40 chem kits.
I generally give four one-hour tests and a final exam per semester in the lecture class. In addition, during the Summer 2000 course I began offering an extra credit exam for those students willing to do the following: 1. work all assigned problems, 2. rewrite their lecture notes, 3. outline the lecture text that has been covered in class, and 4. produce flash-index cards for each completed chapter of study. Students must submit the first three of these materials at the beginning of each class with the flash-index cards due at the completion of each chapter. Students must complete a minimum of 75% of the submissions to receive any credit, credit which is equivalent to the percentage that is submitted over the course of one semester; this is equivalent to one test grade, not substituted for any test, rather an additional test that will be averaged in as an equal with the others. Students may exempt the final exam with an average of 95 or better; the extra credit test is not used to compute the exemptions.
Lab grades are based upon participation (3 pts per lab), quiz grades (4 pts per lab), notebook grades (8 pts per writeup), spectral submissions (up to 8 pts per spectral set), sample labeling (2 pts per experiment), lab equipment score (20 pts), and a final exam (20 pts). Lab notebooks are due Wednesday (the day after lab) by 3:00 pm (organic labs are on Tuesday).