INTEGRATING ELEMENTS OF TEAM-BASED LEARNING AND INCREASING INDEPENDENCE IN A 4TH-YEAR LAB COURSE TO PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING, PROBLEM-SOLVING AND TROUBLESHOOTING SKILLS

Abstract

Although conventional labs provide good opportunities to develop technical communication and analytical skills, they offer few avenues to develop creative problem-solving or experimental design skills. Even when an open-ended Problem-Based Lab (PBL) format is followed, many students remain reliant on TAs or instructors and when problems arise are reluctant to attempt a solution themselves. This paper describes a new design for a 4th-year chemical engineering PBL-based lab course that incorporates elements of Team-Based Learning (TBL), flexibility, and greatly reduces formal supervision to promote independence, problem-solving, troubleshooting, and critical thinking skills. The course structure and deliverables are described. Student feedback, collected from surveys, indicates that they preferred this approach compared to regular labs and felt it was quite successful in developing the aforementioned skills and in increasing their confidence in their engineering judgement. It will therefore be expanded in the future.