Engaging engineering students in early stages by design projects

Abstract

Engaging the students by a design project is a fundamental activity for any engineering degree programme as it promotes in depth the circulation of skills and transferable knowledge through solutions that meet the learning outcome requirements of programme accreditation institutions. Literature is rich in works on the final year capstone design projects where the students are encouraged to demonstrate their engagement for innovation by undertaking open ended activities but remains less explicit on design projects at the early years of the curriculum where the transferable knowledge remains under development may be seen not sufficient to undertake effectively open ended projects with independence in decision making and leadership. This work introduces experience of education practice of the second-year chemical engineering design project through two distinct models: problem-based learning and project-based learning using two case studies: waste tyre gasification into energy and methanol production from syngas, respectively. The former model requires the students to investigate the pathway to reach solution using prior knowledge and the later requires the students to focus on the final solution. The results in terms of effectiveness of leaning and engagement revealed that both methods were seen by the students effective in promoting teaching and developing the design skills. The cognitive learning by students’ engagement was more in favour of project-based learning that offered less uncertainties in the final results and promoted feedback by the students.

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