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Winter 2012 Course and Curriculum Assessment Review
Distributed to faculty 12/12/2012 (no changes were returned to the draft version)
General Action Items:
1. Review the Y/N student feedback on competency proficiency for your Winter 2012 class(es)
located on the J drive (groups\chemeFaculty\competency feedback\Winter 2012). For at
least the three competencies with the greatest number of “No” responses, consider possible
improvements and document your efforts for your course next semester. Submit with the
next course assessment form. Responsible: ALL
2. Ongoing Feedback Loop: Competency 6.6 (rationalize units, order of magnitude
estimates/reasonableness) recommended to be assessed throughout the curriculum. Possible
ideas: Teaching Moment in faculty meeting; benchmark assessments in quiz, exam, etc.;
clicker or Poll Everywhere exercises. Responsible Faculty: Undergraduate Committee.
3. Ongoing Feedback Loop: Consider effectiveness of 391. Responsible Faculty:
Undergraduate Committee.
4. Ongoing Feedback Loop: Improve the UO experience for all involved. Progress continues
on problem based learning projects for 475. Responsible Faculty: UG Committee, 475
and 477 instructors, Mike Beliveau.
5. Closed Feedback Loop: Multiple simulator options were offered in ChEn 451. The results
were 17 groups chose ChemCad, 1 chose Aspen, and 1 chose Unisim. Continue teaching
Aspen.
Competency Changes:
1. Closed Feedback Loop: ChEn 376 competency 3.4.3 Added “flows with phase change”
(“Students will understand convective heat transfer and use of heat transfer coefficients for
laminar and turbulent flows, internal and external flows, fully developed flow, flow with
entry effects, flows with phase change, and forced and free convection.”).
ChEn 170:
1. Ongoing Feedback Loop: The Undergraduate Committee agreed with the previous
instructor that the competency list was lengthy and requested a concrete proposal on
recommended reductions from the previous instructor, but this was not provided. The new
instructor recommends a major course revision and possible combined revamp of 170/191,
but after the UO plans are made and being implemented (there is no link with UO implied,
simply a workload management issue for the committee), to accompany the competency
reduction. Responsible Faculty: UG Committee with previous 170 instructors.
2. The instructor feels that the course is too detailed for a freshman introduction and is
essentially a reduced version of ChEn 273. He recommends more time for hands-on and
experiential learning to excite the students about chemical engineering.
3. About ¼ of students still struggled with unit conversions (3.1.1).
ChEn 191:
1. No action items.
ChEn 273:
1. No action items.
2. The instructor felt that extent of reaction was a particularly strong competency for this class.
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ChEn 373:
1. The instructor felt the students were weak at entropy “balances” (3.7.6: “Students will
understand the concept of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics and be able to
apply the second law to closed and open systems”) and transient problems (3.1.6: “Students
will be able to set up and solve simple transient energy balances”). He felt they needed
more practice, but was unsure how much to emphasize them, particularly transient balances.
He also felt there was not enough time to add more material, but he will work on improving
these competencies in the future. Responsible Faculty: 373 instructor.
2. The instructor feels that some of the competencies (e.g., 3.2.1, “Students will understand the
phase behavior of pure substances in relationship to the variables T, P, and density
(including vapor pressure, critical point, freezing line, triple point, etc.)” and 3.7.5 “Students
will understand and be able to apply the concepts of heat capacity, latent heat, heat of
reaction, heat of combustion, and heat of formation”) are better covered primarily in PChem.
The UG Committee members respectfully disagree. Please continue this instruction.
3. Closed Feedback Loop: The Undergraduate Committee asked all faculty to incorporate
more exercises relating to Competency 6.6 into their instruction. (“Students will be able to
rationalize units, make order of magnitude estimates, assess reasonableness of solutions, and
select appropriate levels of solution sophistication.”)
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4. Closed Feedback Loop: Instructor taught 𝐾 = (∏𝑖 𝑦𝑖 𝑖 )𝑃 ∑𝑖 𝜈𝑖 in a new way. Some
improvement in L3 performance was observed.
ChEn 376:
1. Closed Feedback Loop: Competency 3.4.3 Added “flows with phase change” (“Students
will understand convective heat transfer and use of heat transfer coefficients for laminar and
turbulent flows, internal and external flows, fully developed flow, flow with entry effects,
flows with phase change, and forced and free convection.”).
2. Closed Feedback Loop: The instructor again tracked time spent on homework assignments
via self-reporting by students. The average was just over 2 hours (after including reading)
and outliers were addressed.
3. Closed Feedback Loop: The instructor continued using improved LMTD instruction, with
94% of students reporting mastery of the competency. Effectiveness/NTU method was not
neglected, with 87% of students reporting mastery. He will continue focusing on LMTD.
4. Closed Feedback Loop: The instructor again used the revised syllabus which introduced
competencies in chronological order with subheadings to improve student understanding of
the competencies covered and will continue doing this.
5. Closed Feedback Loop: Instructor continued Leadership Feedback Program with the
project and will continue, transitioning to the electronic portfolio, when available.
6. Instructor unified Biot number definition from text to improve teaching effectiveness and
enhance student understanding.
7. The instructor enhanced some answer keys by providing hints and helping with the thought
process behind the problem, which received positive feedback from students.
8. The instructor published the compiled service-learning project descriptions/instructions and
posters online for K-12 teachers and students. The 376 students appreciated seeing their
projects impact even more than the 500+ students who attended engineering week.
9. Radiative heat transfer was the weakest competency (although 86% of students reporting
mastery). The end of semester timing likely impacts this performance, but this is the best
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place for the topic. The instructor has previously added a day of instruction to improve
student proficiency and will now focus instruction to improve the students’ performance.
ChEn 386:
1. We called this closed last time, but the instructor again suggested changes to competency
3.6.1 (“Students will understand fundamentals of kinetics including definitions of rate and
forms of rate expressions and relationships between moles, concentration, extent of reaction
and conversion.”) by removing the words “forms of” and add “stoichiometry. Suggested
wording:
3.6.1a Students will understand fundamentals of kinetics including (a) definitions of rate,
(b) rate expressions, (c) reaction order, and (d) Arrhenius temperature dependence. and
relationships between moles, concentration, extent of reaction and conversion.
3.6.1b: Students will understand the importance of stoichiometry in reaction kinetics
including the relationships between moles, concentration, conversion, and extent of reaction.
The UG Committee repeats its previous response: The instructor should feel free to
include these changes at the course syllabus level because the specific interpretation is up to
the faculty member. While we like the detail, we do not recommend making all curriculum
competencies this specific.
2. Students were strong on deriving rate laws from mechanisms and pore diffusion.
ChEn 391:
1. Ongoing Feedback Loop: The UG Committee continues to work to address the ongoing
criticisms of this class (including too late coverage of resumes; unneeded oral presentation
practice, especially the canned business presentations better done with “real” numbers in
plant design and the technical presentations are only good if students have done the research
themselves; and the industrial speaker and plant trips, which could be done elsewhere like
the college lecture requirement and AIChE). Responsible Faculty: Undergraduate
Committee.
2. Two instructors feel the course should be eliminated.
3. The lifelong learning exercise was not strong.
4. Additional field trips were offered (e.g., to INL), but no one went.
5. 1-on-1 interactions with members of the Advisory Council for Engineering and Technology
were well-received. These were done instead of having outside speakers, which allowed the
students flexibility to speak with three different people (including recruiters, visiting
scholars, and others) outside of class
ChEn 451:
1. No action items.
ChEn 477:
1. Feedback Loop Closed: Experiment reliability improved.
2. Ongoing Feedback Loop: The UG Committee continues to work to address the ongoing
criticisms of this class (experiment quality/appropriateness, statistics integration, writing
amounts and format, and hands-on experience). Responsible Faculty: UG Committee,
475 and 477 instructors, Mike Beliveau.
3. One instructor found integrating material from across the curriculum a challenge for some
experiments.
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4. The students were strong at engineering problem solving, especially when dealing with
equipment malfunctions.