4 sets of MCQ (80%) - 80/80
Field Exercise (8%) - 18/18
Writing Exercise (10%) - 17/18
Learning Log (2%) - ?
Overall Grade: P
This is a pure online course with no compulsory face-to-face meetings. This course is free for matriculated NTU students, but has a small course fee for non-NTU students. Every 2 weeks, there is a graded MCQ set to be done. In addition, there will be a field exercise / writing exercise in the fortnight interval too. The exercises can be done anytime, and the work done are to be submitted online before the deadline.
Online lectures: As the name suggest, view them.
Field exercises: Take photos of common everyday objects (can be on the streets), edit the photos by adding symmetry operators, and identify the objects using symmetry terms. Not difficult!
Writing exercises: Read an article, and post views and personal examples based on content of the article. No. of words are about 1000 for both exercises. The articles are given.
For all the exercises, there will be online videos that show how different people mark other people work based on the rubrics given, and there are also sample exercises for reference purposes. So, if you have no clue on how to do the exercise, refer to the samples, get some inspiration, and get the work done. After the deadline, there is a peer marking section, and you get to grade other people's work, and the marks are counted in their score! Thus, it's important to give a fair mark that matches the standard of the work.
Even though the course suggested having maths background, it's actually much more important to have a chemistry background. The first half of the course is relatively simple, since it's rather intuitive, and not difficult to understand the basic symmetry operators and diagrams. The second half of the course requires a lot of chemistry and understand of crystal structures (esp. section 4). I find section 3 the hardest, since i have some chemistry background.
It's better to take this course with as many friends as possible. In this way, you can discuss, do the field exercises together, help evaluate whether the diagrams are appropriate or not, discuss tips on writing exercises, or well, it's just good to have more friends.
This is a P/F course with no finals! A good way to clear you STS PE or UE!