Using an Article in a Sophomore Engineering Science Class to Boost Life-long Learning Confidence.

Sophomore-level engineering classes often do not require students to find properties or processes in the literature, as advanced engineering courses do. Using the literature to find information is often considered part of fulfilling ABET outcome i: a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in, lifelong learning. The design project in a sophomore-level course was based on an article in Chemical Engineering Progress, and students were surveyed about confidence in ability to understand similar articles before, during, and after completing the design project. Optimizing an Organic Rankine Cycle by Bourji and Winstead (CEP, January 2013, 35-39) covers a basic Rankine cycle and a Rankine cycle with a form of regeneration, which are both covered in introductory thermodynamics courses. Students who understand the course material should understand the thermodynamics of the paper. The participants read the article and answered a questionnaire three times during the semester: before Rankine cycles had been covered in class, just after the homework assignment on Rankine cycles with regeneration was due, and just after the project based on the article was due. The questionnaire asked about understanding the article, ability to follow the thermodynamic modifications of the article, and ability to reproduce the thermodynamic calculations of the article. All three of these improved as the students learned the material in the course and worked with it through homework and the design project. Confidences in ability to understand engineering principles and to reproduce calculations of similar articles also improved during the study and were probed with separate questions. This study showed that lifelong learning can be encouraged in lower-level courses with the appropriate selection of articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]