Ac 2008-1147: Ideas to Consider for New Chemical Engineering Educators: Freshman and Sophomore Level Courses

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Keith, Jason M. Technological, Michigan Silverstein, David L. Award, Corcoran Visco, Donald P. Visco, Don
Copyright Year	2008
Abstract	So, you are going to teach a core chemical engineering course next term that you have not taught before. It’s time to come up with some new ideas to revolutionize that core course in ways that will amaze students and maximize learning, right? Or perhaps the maxim about “an hour in the library is worth a month in the laboratory” might be meaningful in the context of teaching. This paper summarizes the authors’ selection of the most effective, innovative approaches reported recently in the literature or discussed at previous conferences for lower-division core courses in chemical engineering, as presented at the 2007 ASEE Summer School for Chemical Engineering Faculty. The challenges associated with particular courses and solutions successfully applied to address those challenges will also be described. Courses covered in this paper include introductory courses for freshmen, material and energy balances, fluid mechanics, introductory thermodynamics, and separations. Objectives and Motivation Although teaching is a critical mission of any college or university, today’s faculty members are increasingly becoming involved in other scholarly activities. Thus, when teaching a new course, developing a good set of instructional materials can be a challenging, time-consuming task. In this paper we provide a review of some of what we consider the best practices in engineering education, applied to the following courses: freshmen chemical engineering, material and energy balances, fluid mechanics, introductory thermodynamics, and separations. Note that a companion paper which covers the upper-level undergraduate classes in the chemical engineering curriculum is planned for the following year. The format used for each course is: • Brief description of typical course content • Discussion about novel and successful methods used • Listing of “toughest concepts” for the students (and how to address them) We note that most of this material was originally presented by the authors at the 2007 ASEE Chemical Engineering Division Summer School in Pullman, WA 1 . Freshman Chemical Engineering Courses Depending on the school, this course is either a “stand-alone” introduction to chemical engineering or is part of a college-wide introductory course (with a portion devoted to chemical engineering). Ironically, many chemical engineering educators may never have taken this course. P ge 13678.2 A major goal of the course, as it is a freshman course, should be to cultivate student interest in engineering 2 and motivate students to pursue an engineering career. This course can have a wide variety of formats, depending upon the number of credits and objectives of the course for a particular institution. For example, Brigham Young University has a three-credit course which introduces (via an integrated design problem) all of the aspects of the chemical engineering curriculum 3 , while Tennessee Technological University has a one-credit course that focuses more on hands-on experiments and information exchange 4 . Whatever the course, it is important for a department to identify why they have introduced or are teaching such a freshman course and whether (via specific assessment) the goals and objectives of the class are being met, from both the faculty and student standpoint. In the rest of this section, we briefly highlight (as a resource) some of the novel work available on freshman courses in chemical engineering. Some best practices that we have used (or discovered) for this course are: • The use of freshman design projects: o Design and economic analysis of a controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer plant 5 o Design, build, and test an evaporative cooler o Design and build a pilot-scale water treatment plant o Analyze and design sneakers with better material properties • Introduce in-class, hands-on experiments: o Melting chocolate and coating cookies o Electrophoresis and brewing with microreactors o Heat transfer scaling with hot dogs o Human respiration process One overlooked concept in designing this course is to consider the needs of the student from the student perspective. Recently, the University of Pittsburgh asked their freshman engineering students to conduct a survey of other first-term freshman engineering students on topics the students felt were important 12 . While the results of the surveys are interesting in their own right, the most useful result is the types of surveys the students developed. The top ten types of surveys were as follows: 1. Getting enough sleep? 2. Has high school prepared you for college? 3. Do you feel safe on campus? 4. Any new romantic relationships? 5. Is partying getting in the way of schoolwork? 6. Exercise more or less than in high school? 7. Homesick? 8. Campus food options? 9. Susceptible to doing drugs / alcohol now? 10. Confidence in time management skills? P ge 13678.3 It is noted that there is nothing about a student’s major listed in the top ten. Thus, a freshman engineering course requires a balance between what an instructor knows (or thinks) that a student needs, and what the students think they need. Therefore, while a freshman chemical engineering course must (obviously) contain information about the field of chemical engineering, it should also find ways to address non-chemical engineering related issues as well. Here, ample use of guest speakers in Counseling Services or similar offices on campus should be explored. In addition to what has been discussed above, other ideas in freshman chemical engineering courses exist as well. Roberts discusses a course that focuses on, among other areas, communication skills 13 . Worcester Polytechnic Institute looks to mix writing with first-year engineering in a course taught shared by a ChE faculty and Writing faculty member 14 . Vanderbilt University describes a course where students are introduced to chemical engineering by “using examples from cutting-edge research to illustrate fundamental concepts” 15 . At Youngstown State University, they are demonstrating combustion principles to chemical engineering (and non-chemical engineering) students using a potato cannon 16 . Trouble spots for this course include: • Most students do not know what chemical engineers do – one idea is to have teams of like minded students investigate where Chemical Engineers work in a particular field. Each team will present this information to the rest of the class at the end of the semester. Also, The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center 17 has short “Day in the Life” interviews of various young chemical engineers in a wide variety of industries that is quite informative at emphasizing the diversity of career options accessible for B.S. chemical engineering graduates. • Most students only have a vague idea as to why they are taking math – one idea is to have upperclassmen come into the class and tell them how they are using math in their courses. In fact, using upperclassman as much as possible during the semester is a good idea as it indoctrinates the students easier into the program. • Many students struggle with the transition from high school – one idea is to use upper-class peer mentors or speakers from on-campus who can discuss studentrelevant issues. Having students conduct their own surveys, as discussed in a previous section of this work, might identify the most important issues for your students. Material and Energy Balances This course may also be called the “Stoichiometry” or “Process Principles” course by faculty. Students may refer to it as “The Cut Course,” or by even less flattering names. This course poses a unique challenge in many chemical engineering curricula since it requires students to think at a higher level than in previous courses. A typical course will cover: units and dimensions, properties, measurements, phase equilibria, material balances, energy balances (nonreactive and reactive systems), and combined mass and energy balances. The course should prepare students to apply conservation laws to Page 13678.4 process simulation as the first source of modeling equations. The course is the foundation for the rest of the curriculum—it is all about planting seeds for the future! Trouble spots for this course include: • Reluctance to show work. Students should be required from the start to show clean, detailed solutions even on the easiest problems assigned earlier in the class. Significant point deductions for deviations early in the course help train students to clearly communicate with their problem solving 18 . • Reluctance to apply rigorous methods to simple problems. The grader must pay attention to the method and not just the final answer. Requiring students to start from the general material balance even on problems that can be solved intuitively will aid students in solving more complex problems later in the course. • Misunderstandings about density / specific volume and gc. Repetition, drills, quizzes, and clear examples help to clear up some of these common misunderstandings. Warning students that these can be challenging issues may help a few pay more attention. Keeping a reference page at the beginning of their notebook or in the cover of the textbook with notes on these and other key subjects can also help. • Trouble with thermodynamic diagrams. Students will not grasp these diagrams without working with them. One approach is using online interactive tutorials. Another effective approach is to bring copies of charts (even if they are in the text) for students to use in working problems either with the instructor, or better still, in small groups. They will only learn how to use these charts if they practice using the diagrams. • Reluctance to apply rigorous methods to simple problems. Yes, this problem is significant enough to mention twice. • Integration of “old” material into subsequent chapters. Student are going to tend to compartmentalize knowledge from each chapter (or each homework assignment, each exam, etc.) and not internalize
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