A successful experience with the flipped classroom in the Transport Phenomena course

Abstract

Transport Phenomena is a core subject in Chemical Engineering studies. Its fundamentals need significant effort to be understood. Furthermore, students must apply theory to solve practical engineering problems, and it is usually problem resolution which has the largest weight in course assessment. However, due to the high amount of theory that must be covered in Transport Phenomena courses, usually little classroom time is reserved for practice and problem-solving skills are not worked in class. This constitutes a serious misalignment between learning activities, expected outcomes and evaluation. In this article, we propose the flipped classroom as a suitable methodology to solve this issue. As a pilot study, we flipped one unit of the Transport Phenomena course of the Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering. Theory was provided through whiteboard animated video before the classroom sessions. Classroom time was mainly dedicated to participative discussion and problem solving in small groups. Satisfaction questionnaires were used to monitor student perception of learning quality before and after the methodology update. Student judgement on the interest of the subject and the value of the learnt concepts boosted about 20% on average with the flipped classroom. Around 70% of the surveyed students reported that the new methodology increased their motivation and that it helped them to learn both theory and practice. These results indicate that the flipped classroom is suitable for highly-technical classes with a large amount of complex theory, and it helps in the understanding and application of such theory.