CH3NUI-Health and Safety and Professional Skills

Module Provider: Chemistry
Number of credits: 10 [5 ECTS credits]
Level:6
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2023/4

Module Convenor: Dr James Hallett
Email: j.e.hallett@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module is specifically for Part 3 NUIST students studying on the BSc Applied Chemistry programme. The module is designed to prepare and support such students for carrying out independent research in a practically based investigation in the Spring Term. The module uses a variety of different approaches to support students in the development of transferable skills.

Aims:

• To help students develop the independent learning skills necessary for research;


• To help students develop self-study skills to enable them to research an unknown topic, and solve a problem based upon it;


• To introduce students to with a range of programmes, packages and resources, esp. the chemistry databases used routinely by chemists for learning and researching;


• To familiarise students with a range of resources for researching unknowns;


• To help students develop self-study skills to enable them to research an unknown topic, and solve a problem based upon it;


• To introduce students to effective team working, problem solving and to understand how successful teams operate;


• To help students develop effective time management, organisation, communication and team working skills.


• To give students practice and support in written and oral communication, and to develop scientific writing skills in preparation for writing a literature review and project report.


• To support students in developing career plans and prepare applications for employment or future study.

Assessable learning outcomes:

Students should be able to:

• understand how to structure and compile a practical report;


• tackle unseen problems and devise strategies for solving them;


• extract and manipulate numerical data;


• organise themselves and team members to communicate in appropriate ways or through appropriate media;


• access a variety of resources, including the chemical literature and database, to obtain data and summarisefindings;


• understand what constitutes good academic practice and the importance of referencing and citations;


• construct a reasoned argument to arrive at a valid solution to a problem;


• write a report using suitable scientific language to justify the methods used to solve the problem and the results;


• effectively present findings and results orally.

Additional outcomes:

It is hoped students will develop a thorough understanding and appreciation for good academic practice and teamwork.

Outline content:

As students progress through the module they will cover aspects such as health and safety, careers and employability, using library resources, good academic practice and referencing, writing reports, collecting data and what options are available to them upon graduation.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

The module is composed of a mixture of lectures, discussions, group work tasks and individual assignments.