Last Update: September 22, 2009
Your performance on a laboratory exercise may be assessed in any of four ways: observation in the laboratory, your laboratory notebook, a laboratory quiz or a laboratory report. When you hand in your laboratory notebook I can assess either how you maintained your notebook (see Laboratory Notebook page), how you used scientific reasoning in your Discussion of Conclusions section, or both. I use the grading rubrics found on the Truman ChemLab assessment page for this. I also use an open-notebook laboratory quiz as an alternative assessment tool. This quiz will focus on things that you should have written in your notebook during the last exercise, graphs your should have prepared, etc., as well as your final results. Be aware that just because I'm giving a laboratory quiz, does not mean that I can't ask you to turn in your Discussion of Conclusions, too! A laboratory report will be graded in the same way as the Discussion of Conclusions and the notebook.
The following scale summarizes the points associated with each assessment and how your grade for attendance, preparation and participation is determined. So, a laboratory exercise may be worth as much as 45 points (if the notebook and a laboratory report that includes a graph are graded) or as little as 20 points (if only a laboratory quiz is given). The results grade may also include a grade for any graphs that are part of the results. Click here to view the graph evaluation rubric.
| Use of scientific reasoning in Discussion of Conclusions (holistic) | 5 | May be graded when any duplicate notebook pages are turned in. | |
| Notebook maintenance (holistic) | 5 | Will be graded when all duplicate notebook pages are turned in. | |
| Laboratory Report Style | 5 | Vitamin C exercise only. Vitamin C exercise will also be evaluated for scientific reasoning. | |
| Accuracy/precision of results or laboratory quiz (depends on exercise) | 10 | 10 Points for laboratory quiz, or results if all duplicate notebook pages are turned in. | |
| Attendance/preparation/participation (awarded as shown below) | 17 | Evaluated for all exercises. | |
|
Comes early and is ready to start at laboratory start time |
+5 | ||
|
Arrives in laboratory at scheduled start time |
+1 | ||
|
Arrives in laboratory after scheduled start time |
0 | ||
|
Finishes work at, or before, laboratory end time |
+5 | ||
| Finishes work up to 5 minutes late | +3 | ||
| Stays 5 or more minutes after the end of laboratory | +1 | ||
| Statement of Purpose (+2 good, +1 present, 0 missing) | +2 | ||
| Procedural Outline (+2 good, +1 present, 0 missing) | +2 | ||
| Lab Citizenship (+3 excellent, +2 good, +1 acceptable, 0 not shown) | +3 | ||
| Total | 27 |
The total given represents a minimum point total possible for a laboratory exercise. The total number of points an exercise may be worth will change depending on