Conference Session

ChE: Curriculum Reform & Assessment

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jeffrey Froyd; Jean Layne, Texas A&M University; Lale Yurttas, Texas A&M University; David Ford, Texas A&M University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

providingopportunities for students to practice teaming skills in class and on course projects. Designing aprogram-level assessment, collecting assessment data on an outcome, and analyzing the resultsmay be complex and less objective than technical research; however, the goal is clear: todetermine as reliably as possible if the objectives have been met and, if not, what should be doneto improve each student’s educational experience30.The project team decided to use the same process that was used for developing departmentlearning outcomes to develop learning objectives and their associated assessment processes.First, the project team drafted a set of learning objectives and assessment processes. To begin,the project team focused on the first four learning

Conference Session

ChE: Departmental Issues and Integrating Freshmen into the ChE Program

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Coronella, University of Nevada-Reno

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

it was challenging for them to produce a talk. Eachindividual in the class evaluated each talk, giving written feedback to their classmates. This hadthe benefit of letting students benefit from the "best practices" of their classmates, and resulted inmuch improved subsequent presentations. At this point, the teams' productivity and performancewere quite varied; two teams had only a preliminary design, and several had working prototypes.The sharing of "intellectual property" between teams at this point was greatly appreciated, andfacilitated much improved designs. At this point, no team had a cooler performance greater thanabout 50% maximum cooling, but this set a sort of benchmark. Part of the fourth assignmentrequired the teams to identify

Conference Session

ChE: Departmental Issues and Integrating Freshmen into the ChE Program

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Pedro Arce, Tennessee Technological University; Donald Visco, Tennessee Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Chemical Engineering

2006-1075: A FRESHMAN COURSE IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING: MERGINGFIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCES WITH DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC NEEDSDonald Visco, Tennessee Technological University Donald P. Visco, Jr. is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Undergraduate Program Coordinator at Tennessee Technological University. He received his Ph. D. in 1999 from the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His research focuses on molecular design for the chemical process and pharmaceutical industries.Pedro Arce, Tennessee Technological University Pedro E. Arce is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering At Tennessee Tech University. Dr. Arce is strong advocate of modernization of