Work-in-Progress: Student reactions to an Open Textbook on Mass and Energy balances

Konstantinos Apostolou; Amin Rajabzadeh

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Works in Progress: Chemical Engineering Education
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41895
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41895
Download Count: 244

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Paper Authors

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Konstantinos Apostolou McMaster University

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Dr. Apostolou is a teaching-track assistant professor in the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University in the field of process automation. A chemical engineer with a Dipl. Eng. from the Aristotle University in Greece and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, he has been teaching at McMaster for over ten years in a variety of fundamental engineering and process modeling courses. In his courses he strives to help his students reach and increase their potential, while equipping them with the tools necessary to become productive citizens. To achieve that, he uses ample active learning in the classroom, blended learning through on-line quizzes, and practical training through labs. Teaching in an applied field, he always tries to connect theory to practice through everyday examples and by actively pursuing students’ interactions with the industry and the community. He has served as the Chair of the Automation Engineering Technology Program and has been a MacPherson Institute Research Fellow. In 2017 he received McMaster President's Award for Outstanding Contributions in Teaching and Learning.

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Amin Rajabzadeh McMaster University

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Abstract

This work describes the initial stages of creating an interactive Open Educational (OER) textbook on mass and energy balances and the planned process for soliciting student feedback and making students co-creators on the textbook. The authors have taught the mass and energy balance course for several years and have been challenged by increasing numbers of students that do not purchase the recommended textbook but rely solely on posted lecture slides and relevant material, in-class notes, class recordings (lately), freely available internet videos, and possibly illegal electronic textbook copies. After obtaining some experience with PressBooks and H5P from a pandemic-induced online-lab project, and aided by an institutional OER fund, the authors decided to convert their class notes on energy and mass balances into an OER using those two tools. The aim is to provide students with a free centralized repository for course content and practice that will (1) enhance student understanding through non-text additions (quizzes, videos, and interactive activities) that meet multiple learning styles and (2) will be available to all students regardless of financial ability. The major challenges with the ongoing content creation have been time availability for such a task and avoiding copyright infringement when creating property tables or charts, as will be discussed. Regardless of challenges, significant material has been created and the current status of this ongoing process is shared. A working version of the textbook will be used in Fall 2022 by two cohorts of 150 total students that will be questioned about their opinion on OER, in general, and the specific material through a set of primarily Likert questions and a focus group. The students’ perceptions on the quality, applicability, and helpfulness of the material; the rates of material usage; and students’ suggestions for improvement will be collected. In addition, methods to make students active content creators and the anticipated results of such attempts are discussed. Finally, the timeline of this work in progress, the future of OER in chemical engineering, and the possibility of contributions from a wider academic community are highlighted.

Citation
Format

Apostolou, K., & Rajabzadeh, A. (2022, August), Work-in-Progress: Student reactions to an Open Textbook on Mass and Energy balances Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41895

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This work describes the initial stages of creating an interactive Open Educational (OER) textbook on mass and energy balances and the planned process for soliciting student feedback and making students co-creators on the textbook.  The authors have taught the mass and energy balance course for several years and have been challenged by increasing numbers of students that do not purchase the recommended textbook but rely solely on posted lecture slides and relevant material, in-class notes, class recordings (lately), freely available internet videos, and possibly illegal electronic textbook copies.  After obtaining some experience with PressBooks and H5P from a pandemic-induced online-lab project, and aided by an institutional OER fund, the authors decided to convert their class notes on energy and mass balances into an OER using those two tools.  The aim is to provide students with a free centralized repository for course content and practice that will (1) enhance student understanding through non-text additions (quizzes, videos, and interactive activities) that meet multiple learning styles and (2) will be available to all students regardless of financial ability.
The major challenges with the ongoing content creation have been time availability for such a task and avoiding copyright infringement when creating property tables or charts, as will be discussed. Regardless of challenges, significant material has been created and the current status of this ongoing process is shared.  A working version of the textbook will be used in Fall 2022 by two cohorts of 150 total students that will be questioned about their opinion on OER, in general, and the specific material through a set of primarily Likert questions and a focus group. The students’ perceptions on the quality, applicability, and helpfulness of the material; the rates of material usage; and students’ suggestions for improvement will be collected.  In addition, methods to make students active content creators and the anticipated results of such attempts are discussed.   Finally, the timeline of this work in progress, the future of OER in chemical engineering, and the possibility of contributions from a wider academic community are highlighted.

AU  - Konstantinos Apostolou
AU  - Amin Rajabzadeh
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work-in-Progress: Student reactions to an Open Textbook on Mass and Energy balances
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41895
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41895
ER  -