As I decided the best way to develop the laboratories for this course many ideas went through my mind, but the one that has always stuck out in my mind most is an idea mentioned by former North Carolina State head basketball coach Jim Valvano. In his 1993 ESPY award show speech Jimmy V stated three things important to his life and encouraged all of us to think about these three things everyday:
•Where You START
•Where you ARE
•Where you WANNA BE
In developing all the laboratory components for this course keeping these three things in mind will help develop a mastery of a fundamental chemistry topic to be discussed during that lab period. Let’s look into each topic and see how each one fits into learning the material at hand.
Where You START
Everyone has taken the appropriate course requirements to enroll in chemistry 123. The fundamental knowledge you learned in your first two quarters of general chemistry can be directly applied to learning new concepts. I am not naïve enough to think that you remember EVERYTHING from chemistry 121 and 122, so the “Where You START” section will give a brief background of what you should look over before you enter the laboratory.
Where you ARE
This section will describe the learning objectives of each lab. If you have been keeping up with the course work then you should have a good idea of where you are in the course and you will be aware of what you need to learn and understand in each lab period.
Where you WANNA BE
The toughest part in mastering a chemical concept is knowing how you get from where you are to where you wanna be. This section of the lab will define the success criteria for understanding each concept and will give you a plan as to how to master each key idea.
The link to Jimmy V’s speech
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