Incorporating Learning Styles Into Continuing Engineering Education: A Process Heater Case Study

Lifelong learning is critical to an engineer’s success over the course of their career. Some topics are too specialized to be covered in the typical engineering program and need to be learned after graduation. One specific example considered here is process heaters used in the hydrocarbon and chemical processing industries (HPI/CPI) to heat hydrocarbon fluids that are being converted into fuels like gasoline and chemicals like ethylene. The John Zink Institute has been teaching a course on process burners used in those heaters for many years. However, until fairly recently, relatively little consideration was given to adjusting the instructional methods to accommodate the various learning styles of the students. This paper describes how multiple techniques addressing different learning styles are used to help explain a somewhat complicated, but critically important concept in that course, for properly operating process heaters.