RE-ENGINEERING SUCCESS: YEAR TWO OF A CROSS-COURSE ASSIGNMENT TO DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN A LAB SETTING

Abstract

Last year we reported on a new initiative designed to help students develop their ability to communicate to a client while applying technical lab skills in a joint, end-of-term problem-based learning exercise that we incorporated into our second-year Chemical Engineering curriculum at University of Toronto. The project asked students to research and develop a lab-basedapproach to a real-world problem and to communicate their solution to a client through various deliverables. A student survey, as well as our own observations and student performance have led to revisions in year two, specifically in our feedback schedule, the composition of our grading team, and the nature of a related term two project. This paper discusses the implementation of these changes, and their success using new student survey data and performance. We conclude that these changes have improved student experience and technical performance; communication performance can be further improved by more consistent training of the instructional and grading team, and additional project support in term two.