(598b) Evaluation of Hands-on Learning Experiences in a Junior-Level Separations Course

Chemical engineering education in the United States is grounded in a long-established tradition of introducing foundational theories throughout the curriculum, culminating with a laboratory course that provides hands-on experience with fundamental unit operations during the senior (and sometimes junior) year. While accepted as standard practice, this approach fails to provide students with scaffolded hands-on learning opportunities throughout the undergraduate experience. Many studies have demonstrated the value of active learning, including laboratory activities that couple theoretical concepts with real-world applications, as a means to reinforce understanding, improve student performance, and increase motivation when employed consistently throughout STEM courses (Freeman et al., 2014; Owens et al., 2017). Importantly, reinforcement of theoretical concepts with hands-on practice is particularly effective when conducted in parallel with classroom instruction. To better prepare students for careers in chemical engineering, authentic laboratory experiences should be holistically integrated throughout the undergraduate curriculum, rather than exclusively during the final year, to facilitate enduring understanding of core concepts.

Toward this end, we are transforming our undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum by situating unit operations laboratory activities within their core topic courses to provide students with coupled theoretical and hands-on learning experiences in each year of the program. This process involves adapting existing laboratory experiments to an appropriate course level and providing requisite support for students to gain not only an enduring understanding of the content, but authentic experiences with teamwork and professional skills. Grounded in social constructivism, this effort relies on the theory that knowledge is created not only by absorbing information, but by actively applying concepts within relevant contexts as part of a learning community.

For this study, two senior-level unit operations laboratory exercises, continuous distillation and membrane separation, were adapted for the junior-level separations course. In this work, we present emerging findings on student attitudes about learning, self-perceptions (engineering identities, self-efficacy, etc.), and motivation, and we identify implications for practice and curricular change as this transformation develops. To understand the impact of this type of curricular intervention on students, we employed a concurrent mixed-methods study (IRB #0148897) to assess student attitudes and beliefs about their experiences in the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum, particularly their perspectives on hands-on learning experiences. We collected initial perceptions of active learning and the chemical engineering curriculum through a unit-wide survey. Then, we assessed student perceptions of the two active learning laboratory exercises implemented in their separations course through both quantitative survey responses and qualitative interviews. Of 43 students enrolled in the course, 30 provided survey feedback, and a smaller subset was interviewed. Many students indicated a desire for hands-on learning experiences and noted that participation in these lab activities solidified their understanding of theoretical concepts introduced during the traditional lecture periods, providing a deeper motivation for the foundational course. Additionally, students cited the benefit of working collaboratively within a learning community of peers to accomplish real-world tasks. Future work will synthesize the results of student feedback to improve the laboratory exercises for subsequent offerings and inform further change efforts within the undergraduate curriculum driven by student needs. By assessing student perceptions of and experiences with active learning in this context, we can inform our ongoing transformation of the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum to better facilitate enduring understanding and student motivation and encourage similar transformations within other departments and institutions.

References:

Freeman, S., Eddy, S.L., McDonough, M., Smith, M.K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M.P. Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 2014, 111(23), 8410-8415. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1319030111.

Owens, D.C., Sadler, T.D., Barlow, A.T., & Smith-Walters, C. Student motivation from and resistance to active learning rooted in essential science practices. Res. in Sci. Ed., 2017, 50(1), 253-277. DOI: 10.1007/s11165-017-9688-1.