Toward the above goals, my role in the classroom will be principally as a guide and resource, rather than as solemn lecturer. Thanks to the excellent organization and "readability" of Solomons' text, our classroom activities can be comprised of relative ly novel enterprises, rather than simple transfer of my notes to your notebooks. Our time will revolve around three principle activities, roughly one for each of the three days we spend on a given chapter. (We will cover approximately one chapter from the text every three days.) These activities will be described in detail below. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of regular class attendance and diligent study habits. You will find that the flow of material is constant and substantial. Without daily reading, studying, and working of problems, together with attendance at every class you will easily find yourself too far behind to ever catch up. The concepts in organic chemistry build as though they were an inverted pyramid. No concept is ever learned and discarded. Rather, all the ideas presented become incorporated into a foundation for the understanding of later topics.

In-Class Written Problems and Discussion

On the first day for each chapter I will provide you with at least one 5-10 minute in-class exercise to be worked independently about some aspect of that chapter. My assumption is that you will have read the chapter in advance and be prepared to work wit h some basic concepts from that chapter in the problem I assign. We will evaluate and discuss this assignment immediately afterward, using it as the guide for our discussion that day. The exercise will be worth ten points, with the best ten out of twelve scores of th e semester counted toward your point total. Papers will be shuffled anonymously among the class and graded by one of your peers during our discussion period. These exercises will generally help your class total, so long as you attend class faithfully and read ahead. There will be no make-up opportunities for these exercises since there will be more opportunities provided than are counted in the total.

Lecture and Discussion on Requested Topics

Learning Group Activities

Assigned Homework Problems

Implicit in the design of how our classroom time will be spent is the notion that chemistry can only truly be learned by the working of problems. The classroom and reading alone will not suffice. You are responsible for your learning in this class, although I am your guide and mentor. Thus, problems from each chapter will be assigned (but not collected). Problem assignments are given on the hard copies of the Study Sheet for each chapter. Solutions to the assigned problems can be found at the back of the text and in the accompanying Study Guide. You must give each problem a good effort before consulting the Study Guide for an answer if you are to learn by the process. You must work problems every day, or else you will not have sufficient time to absorb the material and measure your skills before exams. This is time-tested advice. We will have the opportunity to discuss some problems in class. Again, however, you must give the problems solid effort in advance before asking for help. I am, of course, available for your assistance during my scheduled office hours, through email, and frequently during other times as well.

In addition, several evening problem sessions with Academic Assistance Center Tutors will be scheduled each week. Your attendance of at least one of these problem sessions each week is strongly recommended. Specific times will be arranged during the first week of class. Some of the tutors are also available for individual appointments through the Academic Assistance Center. These services are covered under your tuition. Contact the Academic Assistance Center for further information (Ramstad 112, X 7518).

Student Board of Directors

A Student Board of Directors for Organic Chemistry will be elected by the class. This board, comprised of four of your student peers, will meet with me regularly to communicate ideas from the class at large. Anyone is welcome to discuss any aspect of the course with me at any time, of course, but as an additional avenue you may bring concerns to your peers serving on the Board, who will then appraise me of the issue on an anonymous basis. I will consider advice from the Board most seriously. On the first day of class we will conduct a nomination process for candidates to the Student Board of Directors. On the second day of class I will accept write-in nominations, and you will vote on the slate of candidates.

Use of Computers

Email

A word about my intended use of email in this class. I expect that every one of you will arrange to have a computer account set up for yourself and that you will know how to use email. Terminals are available for your use in the Open Lab in Rieke Science Center and in the computer user rooms on campus. If you have a personal computer and it is equipped with a modem, you can access the university computers from the location of your own computer (the ideal situation). With your computer account comes access to email, library resources, the Internet, and much of whatever else one can presently call "the information super highway". My plan is to receive by email your suggested topics for class discussion and problem requests, and also to send you information, assignments, and responses to your questions by email. I usually check my mail several times each work day, and typically once in the evening. Please send me a message saying that you are on board as soon as your account is set up. My preferred email address is fryhle@u.washington.edu, as noted above. (Please use this address rather than the one on pepper at PLU.)

The Organic Chemlist - An Email Discussion List

I expect that with establishment of your email account you will subscribe to the PLU email discussion list called the Organic Chemlist. To subscribe, send an email message to listproc@rainier.chem.plu.edu with nothing but Subscribe organic1 Your Name in the body of the message (italics only for emphasis, and note the roman numeral one at the end of the name organic1). Once subscribed through this message, all of your future messages to the list should be addressed to organic1@rainier.chem.plu.edu. The Organic Chemlist will be used by me to post class-wide announcements, lecture clarifications, and replies to some of your questions. You are also encouraged to use it among yourselves to arrange impromptu study sessions, discuss organic chemistry with each other, and in general communicate about anything germane to Organic at PLU.

The Organic Chemlist email group will also serve as the electronic medium for The Organic Journal Club (TOJC). TOJC will be a communal diary of the class's learning of organic chemistry. The goal of TOJC is to stimulate a ferment of class-wide discussion about current topics in organic and provide a living record of our learning process. Participation in The Organic Journal Club is a required part of the course. Archives of participation in The Organic Journal Club by previous classes can be reached by following the links above. Messages are sorted by subject, thread, author, and date.

The following are expectations regarding participation in The Organic Journal Club:

• Ten email submissions to The Organic Journal Club are required of each student during the semester.
• Each submission will be worth five points (for a total of 50 points over the semester) and will be awarded automatically based solely on participation, so long as the message content enhances the learning atmosphere of the course.
• There is no pressure to have your postings be especially insightful or pithy. Honest desire to learn and respectfully share your knowledge are the attitudes that should come forth from your messages. Postings to TOJC should be something like "Could someone please explain...", (a question posed to the group in expectation of an answer), or an answer to a previously posted question, or "I learned ......... about organic chemistry today.".
• Submissions should be brief (a few sentences to a paragraph will usually suffice). What you write should be grammatically correct.
• Responses to questions in TOJC should be provided primarily by other students in the class, and thus will typically not come from me. I will monitor the list, but leave the discussion principally up to you.
• Any disrespectful posting will remove five points from the author's course total.
• The Subject line of the message header should succinctly state the specific topic of the message. When replying to a message, leave the original subject line intact when you reply so that the messages will be associated with each other by topic.
• Of the required 10 postings by each person, no more than 5 will be counted in each half of the semester (in order to spread out participation in TOJC over the entire term).

World-Wide Web

In order to increase your access to course information I have provided this course outline and other course information over the World Wide Web at http://rainier.chem.plu.edu/organic.html. You can also access it through links from my home page (http://rainier.chem.plu.edu/fryhle.html). These pages include links to the software and Internet resources mentioned below.

Supporting Software and Data

There is a wealth of software and computerized resources available to support courses in organic chemistry. Much of this is available free over the Internet, including software for drawing chemical structures and importing them into formal reports (ISIS /Draw), software for viewing computerized molecular models in three dimensions (Rasmol), archives of organic structures for use with Rasmol, and spectroscopic data and processing programs. Links to this software can be found on my home page (http://raini er.chem.plu.edu/fryhle.html) and the Organic Chemistry Home Page (http://rainier.chem.plu.edu/chemdept/organic.html).

I expect that all of your work for credit will be done strictly in the spirit of academic honesty. I trust that each one of you will conduct your work with the highest level of integrity. Furthermore, I expect that each of you will assist in maintaining an atmosphere of honesty by bringing to my attention any lapse in academic honesty you observe. Any breach of academic honesty will receive a severe penalty. In this case, withdrawal from the course will not be possible.