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In higher education, the college students should receive enough training to foster their capability of solving complex engineering problems in real world, which often occur during the material conversion processes from raw materials to target products in scientific laboratories. It is important that their experimental courses in their college studies are arranged in a systematic and complete manner. The scientific researches are often the epitomes of industrial productions. The advanced technologies happened in the laboratories can be exploited as the useful materials to train the capabilities of senior college students in resolving the engineering problems. Using the applications of electrospinning in creating solid dispersions of poorly water-soluble drugs as teaching materials, a series of experimental courses are systematically and completely arranged for the students in their course “Modern Material Analysis Methods”. Through these training, the college students’ abilities and experiences in resolving the complex engineering problems are expected to be enhanced. The Background for Systematic Design of Experiment Courses No matter in the industrial productions or in the experimental studies, a common procedure is that the activities start from the selections of raw materials, the determination of processing technologies, and end in the achievements of final products. Fig. 1 gives a schematic diagram of these activities. According to different situations, the raw materials can be natural materials, artificial materials, macroscopic materials and microscopic materials. As an nano era, more and more target products at microscopic scales are exploited as raw materials for deep processing. One famous example is the graphene oxides, which are frequently explored to prepare inorganic-organic composites to take advantages of their excellent physicochemical properties. However, the most important section during this procedure is the processing technology, which is often composed of a series of material processing methods. These methods include traditional techniques, advanced techniques, nanotechnologies, chemical synthesis approaches, and their combinations. Figure 1. The complex engineering problems often occur during the material conversion processes from raw materials to target products. In higher education, the college students in university of technology are required to grasp both the traditional industrial technologies and also the advanced scientific methods. But the most 2nd Annual International Conference on Social Science and Contemporary Humanity Development (SSCHD 2016) © 2016. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 432 fundamental concept is that they should receive enough training to foster their capability of solving complex engineering problems in real world. Thus, it is very important that their experimental courses in their college studies should be systematic and complete. The Complex Engineering Problems Associated with the Advanced Technologies Because of the limited resources for educations, it is impossible that all the students are sent to the factories for receiving production practices for a long time period. However, there are many scientific research laboratories in all the universities. The scientific researches are often the epitomes of industrial productions. Thus, the advanced technologies happened in the laboratories can be exploited as the useful materials to train the capabilities of senior college students in resolving the engineering problems. The scientific researches can feedback the teaching in higher school not only in providing teaching materials, but also training them to think the experimental/industrial activities in a right manner. Fig. 2 gives an example to how to organize a practice process. From a standpoint of developing novel materials, the first question and also the starting point is their functional applications. They can be materials for energy applications, environmental applications, biomedical applications, military applications, communication applications and any other applications. The second question is what type of raw materials can be utilized to create the desired products. The selection of origin materials needs experiences in the related fields. Then the key question is how to synthesize the desired products from the raw materials, i.e. the reasonable selection of technology. Today, the most popular techniques for material preparation are nanotechnologies, which can be divided into two categories, i.e. the top-down methods and bottom-up methods. Typical top-down methods are often a physical process without creation of new molecules such as grinding, high pressure homogenization, electrospinning and electrospraying. In the higher education, the college students should be trained to grasp some of the up-to-date advanced technologies (particularly some of the nanotechnologies), to think over the whole material conversion processes, and to accumulate experiences in resolving the complex engineering problems associated with the advanced technologies. Thus, in future, it is should be easy for them to make use of these experience when they encounter the real complex engineering problems in their daily work. Here, an advanced technology, electrospinning [1-4], is utilized as a useful tool to explain the essences of complex engineering problems, to figure out how to design the experimental courses systematically in higher education for training the students’ capability of solving complex problems. Figure 2. Advanced technologies can be utilized as the useful tools to explain the essences of complex engineering problems

Fostering the Students' Capability of Solving Complex Engineering Problems through Systematic Design of Experimental Courses