Hands On Introduction To Chemical And Biological Engineering

Montana State University has revised our freshman seminar course by modeling it after Rowan University’s exemplary Freshman Engineering Clinic which utilizes a hands-on laboratory approach to introduce freshman students to engineering. In the first half of the course, innovative laboratory modules developed by faculty at MSU and Rowan were adapted and implemented. These laboratories utilize common activities (such as brewing coffee, taking blood pressure, and delivery of medication) and cutting edge research (such as magnetic resonance imaging and microbial fuel cells) to teach fundamental engineering principles, techniques for experimental measurement, data representation and analysis, and group problem solving and communication skills. Many of these laboratories are designed to build upon the student’s current base of knowledge and experience. A unique aspect of these lab units is that many concepts are taught in an inductive learning format. Students are asked to predict experimental outcomes, perform the experiments, plot and analyze the data, and compare results to their predictions. All this occurs prior to exposing the student to the underlying theory, predictive calculations, and industrial applications. In the second half of the course, student groups are asked to design their own experiment, run the experiment, analyze and interpret the data, and present their experimental design and results to peers and instructors. In this experiment, students must apply their learning from the first half of the semester to an experiment of their own choosing. In this paper, we will briefly discuss the structure of the course and present assessment data from Fall 2004 and Fall 2005 course offerings. The assessment data include a preand post-course assessment exam, pre and post-course skills survey, student assessment of learning in the labs, and focus group interviews as well as the standard end-of-course instructor evaluation and course outcomes survey. Introduction In a manner similar to Rowan University’s Freshman Engineering Clinic I, students were introduced during their first semester in the program to fundamental engineering concepts using a hands-on laboratory approach. Innovative laboratory modules were designed and/or adapted from published materials. These laboratories utilize common activities (such as brewing coffee, taking blood pressure, and delivery of medication) to teach fundamental engineering principles, techniques for experimental measurement, data representation and analysis, and group problem solving skills 1,2,3 . Many of these laboratories are designed to build upon the student’s current base of knowledge and experience. Through hands-on laboratories and follow-up seminars, the students were also introduced to the breadth of traditional and non-traditional careers available to graduates in chemical engineering. A unique aspect of this laboratory based course is that most concepts are taught in an inductive learning format. Students were asked to predict experimental outcomes, perform the experiments, plot and analyze the data, and compare results to their predictions before being exposed to the underlying theory and predictive calculations. By incorporating the concepts within innovative/hands-on activities, it is expected that the students will personalize the learning, thereby leading to improved mastery, retention, and transferability. The course change was initiated fall semester of 2003 by incorporating selected laboratory modules into the existing one credit seminar-based course. In fall 2004, the course was expanded to two credits with the addition of several more laboratory units. The resulting course was formatted as a one credit seminar which meets one hour per week and a one credit laboratory which meets two hours per week. The revised freshman seminar course that we developed is based on the findings of research on learners and learning as presented in How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, a National Research Council publication. The three key findings of research on learners and learning outlined in the NRC publication are 4 : 1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside of the classroom. 2. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: a. have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, b. understand facts and ideas in a conceptual framework, and c. organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. 3. A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them. The format for the course is as follows. Lab/recitation sections meet for two hours each week on Wednesday or Thursday and the seminar section meets for one hour each week on Friday. Lab sections have been limited to 9 students in order to provide more intimate contact between the instructor(s) and the students. Lab groups are limited to 3 students as we have found that in groups with 4 or more students, one or more students may not fully participate in the exercise. Prior to the lab session, each group must meet to discuss the lab and assign team responsibilities which consist of a team leader, data recorder, and worker. At the beginning of most experiments, the group will be asked to predict a particular outcome of the experiment and explain their prediction. The group then performs the experiment, plots and/or analyzes the data, and compares the outcome to their initial prediction. Computers are available in the lab for “on the spot” data entry and analysis. If the outcome differs from their prediction, they will then be asked to postulate why the outcome differs and formulate a new explanation. Only after the students spend some time working with data and attempting to explain trends do we expose them to the underlying theory. After discussing the theory, we often ask the groups to make predictive calculations based on the theoretical relationships and compare the predictions to the data obtained in the experiment. This format of inductive teaching is fully supported by educational research as described in How Students Learn: “A critical feature of effective teaching is that it elicits from students their preexisting understanding of the subject matter to be taught and provides opportunities to build on – or challenge – the initial understanding... Numerous research experiments demonstrate the persistence of preexisting understandings among older students even after a new model has been taught that contradicts the naïve understanding... For the scientific understanding to replace the naïve understanding, students must reveal the latter and have the opportunity to see where it falls short 4 .” Moreover, active learning techniques, group problem solving, and scientific investigations involving real-world contexts seem to be particularly advantageous for retaining women and minority students in the engineering curriculum 5 The lab units have been sequenced such that the skills and concepts learned each week form a foundation for concepts developed in subsequent weeks. The order of teaching concepts in this course is modeled after that presented in the text Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes 6 . This is a required text for this course and is also used in the sophomore level material balance course. A schedule for the Fall 2005 course offering is shown in Figure 1. For the past three years a significant portion of the laboratory has been a student-designed experiment where groups of two to three students design their own experiments, run the experiments, analyze the collected data, run follow-up experiments, and present their results to their peers. The student-designed experiment provided a much needed component to the introductory laboratory: application of learning. The student-designed experiment offers students the opportunity to take what they’ve learned and apply it to an experiment of their choosing. Students had dedicated time with an instructor for experimental plan development. Students were then required to propose their ideas to both instructors and other lab groups prior to experimentation. Each lab group had up to six hours in the laboratory to complete their experiments. Finally, students gave a formal presentation about their experimental design and results. Students design their experiments as they choose, including identifying the experimental parameters and data collection methods. Figure 1. Course Schedule Week Lab Topic Seminar Topic 8/29 to 9/2 Course Introduction, Blood Pressure Lab, and Problem Solving Pre-assessment surveys • Bring calculator 9/5 to 9/9 Drug Delivery I • Read Lab Handout • Read F&R Ch 1, 2.1 to 2.3 Significant figures and dimensional homogeneity • Read F&R 2.5a,b and 2.6 9/12 to 9/16 Drug Delivery II • Read Lab Handout • Meet in computer lab (Cob 308) Linear interpolation and linear curve-fitting of non-linear data