Class News (updated Sat 3/21)

Note that almost ALL of this was updated on Saturday 3/21.

Class Survey: Thank you to those students who did the class survey on canvas. The results are in with just over 60% of the class voting. It was 2 to 1 in favor of asynchronous. This means that 33% voted for synchronous class and 67% wanted asynchronous. Well I've got some good news and bad news for both groups. The College/University has already decided that we HAVE to do synchronous - so that is what we will do. I will however, ALSO put up quite a bit of asynchronous content that you can use for your studies.

We WILL be a totally ONLINE synchronous class after the break.

Note: Exam 2 has been rescheduled for Thursday 4/2. We will have a way of administering the exam online. It will be synchronous, meaning you will need to go online at 2:00 pm and take the exam over a timed period. Details will be ironed out in the next week. We will give you instructions - we might even try an online practice test first. Exams 3, 4, and the final will also be online.

Current Plans for "Class"

"Class" will now be synchronous - which means that you WILL need to login at 2:00pm (CST) on each Tuesday and Thursday and join in on all our class day fun and excitement. Woo hoo! Something WILL be happening online during classtime for the rest of the semester. FYI - although Zoom is getting all the press for live online sessions, the University is also licensing another system as well called Panopto. It looks good too and has it's own unique set of attributes. I'll be testing them both out this coming week. We might even bring "clickers" back for in-class questions because iclicker Reef will be free.

To promote better engagement and participation, PART of class time will basically be my office hours for the class where I specifically answer questions over concepts and homework problems. This is better than my "old" office hours on TTH mornings in that ALL of you can make my office hours now because they will be during class time.

I will do my best to get through a lecture/presentation in the first 30-40 minutes of class and then shift into office hour mode in the last 20-30 minutes of class. Jimmy will also still be posting the daily (class days that is) quizzes on canvas. I'm hoping this "hybrid" approach will satisfy both those students who want the consistency of class time AND those students who want more online materials to study in addition to chembook.

HWs will still be on canvas and be out for like a week to 10 days at a time. And QZs as pointed out above, will be out and due on class days. The University is licensing a few exam proctoring platforms. I'm guessing that we will be using one of them and have our exams online and synchronous... meaning you still will take the exam over a 75 minute window during class time (Thur 2:00pm - 3:15pm). Stay tuned, more details are coming this week.

Office Hours: Like I said earlier, my office hours will be a second half (or final quarter) of our class time. We actually had success with this on days class let out early and many of you stayed and asked questions. Outside of class, Jimmy will work up a method of having some sort of office hours as well. He might try and gather student questions and concerns and then put up videos answering all the questions. He would do this often enough to get many questions answered. He may or may not go live with a Zoom session.

UT's Official Guidance Related to the Coronavirus Disease.