Incorporating Inclusivity and Ethical Awareness into Chemical Reaction Engineering

Abstract

With the advance of engineering education research and scholarship, there has been an increased focus on amending chemical engineering courses to increase student learning, engagement and enjoyment. These approaches are often incorporated in project-based courses such as capstone design courses and laboratory courses, providing opportunities to apply knowledge to authentic problems that increase student learning and enjoyment. There has also been increased interest in the integration of active pedagogies into core chemical engineering courses, such as flipped classrooms, screencasts, or conceptual clicker questions. This article describes the Chemical Reaction Engineering (CRE) course at the University of Michigan which has had a long-standing tradition of advancing student-centered learning techniques. With the use of his textbooks, Professor Scott Fogler introduced the use of the CRE algorithm that helps students solve CRE problems through critical thinking rather than memorization. Students are tasked with applying it to a range of industrially relevant processes as well as other real world processes such as modeling hippopotamus digestive processes as standard CRE reactors. Professor Fogler also implemented the use of In-Class Problems (ICPs) into lectures. The in-class time for the CRE course is structured as two hours, two days a week. One-and-a-half hours of class is devoted to traditional lecture (incorporating other active learning elements, such as clicker questions) and a half hour is devoted to ICPs. During the ICPs, students work in teams of three or four to solve an assigned problem.