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An Online Course for Professional Development of Chemical Engineering COOPs and Interns

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Conference

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

New Orleans, Louisiana

Publication Date

June 26, 2016

Start Date

June 26, 2016

End Date

June 29, 2016

ISBN

978-0-692-68565-5

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Virtual and Web Learning in Chemical Engineering

Tagged Division

Chemical Engineering

Page Count

15

DOI

10.18260/p.26232

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/26232

Download Count

1156

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Paper Authors

biography

Richard A. Davis University of Minnesota Duluth

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Richard Davis is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He has BS and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and the University of California Santa Barbara. His teaching and research interests include the pedagogy of engineering education, process modeling and simulation applied to mineral processing, unit operations of separations, air pollution control, and environmental management.

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Abstract

An online course was created for professional development of chemical engineering students participating industrial cooperative education and internships. The course guides students through a set of exercises designed to cycle through the four stages of Kolb’s learning theory: experience, reflection, generalization, and experimentation. Students naturally acquire concrete professional experience while practicing in an industrial setting. Instead of a traditional approach to coop education that concludes the industry experience with a reflective report, our approach uses small reflective exercises distributed through the coop/internship period that focus on a set of professional competencies. Students complete Kolb’s cycle using the key process steps of project management as a laboratory of generalization and experimentation with professional skills. It was concluded that students accelerated their professional development with periodic reflection and experimentation along with timely assessment and feedback from the instructor.

Davis, R. A. (2016, June), An Online Course for Professional Development of Chemical Engineering COOPs and Interns Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26232

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