Thanks for a good, fairly normal, semester

[Zellmer, Robert]

I hope your finals went well.

I want to say thanks for a good semester.   We're pretty much
back to normal w/o masks, for the most part.  At least we were able
to have in-person lectures for the whole semester, except the one
for the snow days.  I like being able to do demos and getting to
interact with you in class.

I know I didn't get to know most of you. At least I got to see parts of
your faces during lecture and finally maskless faces after spring
break.  Although, that first lecture back from the break I thought I
was in the wrong room since I didn't recognize most of you w/o the
masks.  Funny, I was able recognize those who continued to wear
them.

As or class dwindled in size I did start to get to know more of you
and place a face and name.  If you run into me somewhere in the
future please don't feel bad if I don't recognize you or remember
your name, especially your name.  Please say hello and reintroduce
yourself.  As the years go by I often don't remember names for very
long.  Hey, I've had close to 30,000 students so far in my career.
That's a whole lot of names and faces.  They say your life flashes
before your eyes when you die so I figure it will take awhile for me to
die if I have to go through all the faces I've seen.  Besides, my
stubborn side will make me hold on as long as possible.  There's so
much I still haven't seen or learned.

Thanks for your cooperation at the final.  We got set up quickly.
I can't say much about the final or average since they haven't
released them.  They will not be releasing the questions and your
answers.

I want to say a special thanks to those who continued to come to
lecture.  I'm grateful for that.  It's much easier to lecture when people
are there.  I enjoyed the personal interactions being in person and
doing demos.  I hope no matter what the outcome, you can say
you learned something.  I think there were times we actually had a
little fun and laughed a little, even at my bad jokes.  Hey, I'm not
getting paid enough to come up with good ones.  Whoever thought
you would be able to laugh during a chemistry lecture.  Maybe you
even learned something new and found a few things interesting (like
how geckos can walk on walls or how to get your clothes cleaner or
how you can drink a strong acid solution, if it's diluted properly, etc.).
Sometimes even the simple and mundane parts of life can be really
interesting when you know something about the underlying reasons.
Please continue to learn as much as you can and educate yourselves
about your life around you.  It will come in handy someday (maybe
you can save some money on that engagement/wedding ring).

A special shout out goes to those who asked questions.   Asking
questions in lecture is good.  I will say I got more questions when
lecturing remotely last year than this semester in person.  Perhaps
people feel more comfortable asking when not in person.  I can
understand that.  Get over that.  You learn by asking questions and
if you have a question it's a sure bet someone else has that question
or maybe didn't even think about it.  It also lets me know what you
don't understand and hopefully do something to fix the problems
you're having right then.

It was nice discussing other things before lecture and when people
sent me little tidbits in e-mail about things of interest or what we
were talking about in class.  I haven't been convinced though about
getting in a small plane.

A very special shout out goes to my "Acid".  I hope you took it the
way it was intended, in fun.  My last shout out goes to those of you
who helped with other demos.

I know the speed of the course makes things tough. I do take the
speed of the course and amount of material covered into account
when we apply the curve.

Chemistry is done so you can all rest a little easier.  I know some of
you are done for good and are probably really happy about that.  I know
some of you may have to repeat.  That's not the end of the world, as you
may think right now.  It is not the worse thing that will happen to you in
your life.  It happens now and then, even to the best of students.  If
you will be retaking the course, please speak to me before you do.
I'm sure if approached properly anyone can pass this course and do
well.  I don't want you to have to repeat a third time.
If you have to repeat for grade replacement, I'm not sure how this will be
handled by the Engineering Dept. or the Chem Dept. since 1250 will not
be offered until Sp23 and it may be a different course.  I would imagine
they'll accept the new 1250 as replacement for this class.

The grades haven't been completed.  We had a couple of make-up exams
which had to be taken.  I expect the initial grade file from the office sometime
later today.  The Vice Chair and I will discuss scores and grades and make
things as fair as possible. I'm sorry it will still take awhile.  I know it can be
excruciating wondering what your grade will be.  It is not an easy task for the
office to get grading done, all scores together, set grades, etc. for over 4000
students in the first-year courses taught by our department in just a few days.
They do an amazing job considering it's an enormous task.

Your grades might be in Carmen by Friday but it could be Monday when
the grades are due to the registrar.  They may not make it to BuckeyeLink
until Monday.

Once you get your grades,  before e-mailing to ask if there was a curve think
about what a 'normal' grading scale is and then look at your score and your
letter grade.  When we say we "curve" the grades a lot of people think it
means we add points to your raw scores or percentages.  That's not what
we do.  We adjust grade cuts.  In high school maybe you needed a 60% to
pass with a D but now maybe it's 52% (just an example).  We adjust the
grade ranges (cutoffs) slightly based on the points (percentages) everyone
received for the course as a whole, not each individual piece.  Your
percentages do not change.  I mentioned this in a previous e-mail.  It's also
addressed in the syllabus.
Keep a couple of other things in mind.  When you look at the average for
a specific quiz, Carmen will average in scores for all students, even though
it might be one of the lowest 3 quizzes for some students which would be
one of the dropped quizzes.  That means the average for a specific quiz is
artificially low.

Also, when we cut grades we don't include anyone who didn't complete
the course.  I have a few students who haven't done anything since the
first couple of weeks of the semester.  I actually have a couple who didn't
do anything after the first week.  They simply never officially dropped the
course.  So when you see an average for the class total in Carmen it will
include those students.  Again, that artificially depresses the actual class
average.

If you wish to inquire about your grade, you can but again think about
what it would have been w/o any curve.  I may not be able to answer
e-mails immediately.  I'm still in the middle of what turned from a minor
renovation into a bit of a mess.  This started last November.  I  should
have learned from all those renovation shows on HGTV.  Although based
on what I've experienced they "lie" about the costs.  I will try to answer
e-mails as quickly as I can.

It really was a pleasure this semester.  I certainly was a little more fun
than being all on-line.  Things may still not be quite normal but it's getting
there.  Maybe by next autumn we'll be back to normal and I can go back
to football games.  Go bucks, beat Xichigan, and everyone else.

Have a good summer.  Enjoy yourselves and rest up.  Good luck next
semester and in the future.

Dr. Zellmer

P.S.  One more bad dad joke I heard awhile back.  You might have to think for
a few seconds.

What did the bear say to the bear hunter when they met in the woods (scroll down)?





Moo!
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