Joint Projects and Assessments of Chemical Engineering Units: An Approach to Enhance Student Learning

Abstract

The ability to apply knowledge of basic science and engineering fundamentals associated with each and every subject learnt in their undergraduate program is an essential attribute of the chemical engineering graduate. Even though principles of chemical engineering are distributed across the units from first to fourth year, a chemical engineer should be able to relate all these principles to solve chemical engineering problems. However, relating these principles and drawing parallels between these subjects is not an easy task unless during their undergraduate study, a chemical engineering student was given training in doing projects involving principles across a variety of units. In view of the above necessity, chemical engineering at Curtin University has implemented combined projects and joint assessments between two units which not only provides an avenue for students to experience relating concepts they learnt from different units, but also reduces the work load for both teaching staff and students. In this paper, two experiences of having combined projects and joint assessments between units in chemical engineering program are presented and discussed.