Nontraditional, interdisciplinary immersive approach to Chemical Engineering design: A case study assessment and analysis

In our increasingly globalized world and project based, interdisciplinary industrial teams, there is a need for concurrent teaching and learning of design skills and professional skills, e.g., teamwork, global competence (awareness), etc. This paper describes, assesses, and analyzes a non-traditional, immersive approach to teaching a capstone chemical engineering process design course. The Advanced Design Project (ADP) course is a three-week, intensive senior level design course, which includes mechanical engineers and chemists from a technical German university and chemical engineers from a private German university of applied science and an American university. The nontraditional approach utilized in the ADP course meets the ABET accreditation standards set by the traditional American chemical engineering capstone process design course. Additional emphasis, especially in terms of acquisition of communication skills, ability to work on a multidisciplinary team, and obtain a global perspective, is obtained in the ADP course. These skills are typically much more difficult to practice in a traditional American senior design course. Through the ADP course, students perceived that they had increased their knowledge and skills in design and teamwork. Open questions about the concepts of design and teamwork were analyzed quantitatively with a rubric and qualitatively to look at student perceptions. According to the scored assessment, students had lower competences in design and teamwork in comparison to their self-assessment. The qualitative assessment showed that students understand parts of design and teamwork, but were unable to put together a full, more nuanced concept of design and teamwork. This non-traditional, intercultural, interdisciplinary approach to chemical engineering process engineering design exposes students to broader perspectives and a more “real-life” industry situation, thus better preparing chemical engineering students for their future professional lives.