(190e) Design Principles for Independent Experiential Learning Resources: A Review of Literature and Personal Experience

Experiential learning exercises such as labs are almost universally acknowledged to be a core aspect of the training of any engineering student. It serves multiple purposes ranging from the demonstrations and validation of concepts taught in the classroom to enabling independent learning by students. A key part of the experiential learning process that is gradually getting more attention in pedagogical literature are the resources that the students use. These resources include the rigs and apparatus, various teaching handouts and online video resources that students can access. Resources intended for defined experiments with little student autonomy are conceptually more straightforward to design as they need to serve a singular function with limited variability. In contrast, independent learning resources are more complex as the resources need to help create an experimental design space for students to explore. These resources need to be carefully designed to incorporate features that facilitate the exploration and learning process.

The 2^nd year teaching labs, named the “Knowledge Labs” at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London has undergone a significant overhaul in 2016 in response to consistently poor student feedback. This process involved the redevelopment of the entire module and the in-house construction of 6 research-grade pilot scale teaching rigs and associated resources for topics ranging from reaction engineering to process control and separation processes amongst other modules. Following the overhaul, despite various teething issues, students have been consistently reporting significantly improved engagement and interest in the module. This experience, together with a review of recent literature serves as the basis of the identification and elucidation of the following design principles that we believe educators should incorporate in their own design of resources of independent experiential learning processes. Figure 1 outlines these design principles.

Principle 1: Flexibility

Two modes of flexibility in the lab can be facilitated by resource design. The first is flexibility in design of experiments. This mode means that students are empowered to conceive their workflow in a variety of ways and need to apply material from the classroom and engineering discernment to select and justify a workflow. The second mode of flexibility is flexibility of concept integration. This mode refers to a resource that can integrate various topics from different engineering domains (e.g. reaction engineering and process control) in the same workflow. Flexibility has been incorporated in the following examples:

• Providing students a highly flexible platform or a tool which then can be used by students in a wide variety of ways [1].
• Developing rigs that intrinsically draw upon different topics taught such as performing a chemical reaction in a rig that also needs control [2].

Principle 2: Accessibility

Accessibility is a broad design principle which can be understood as incorporating features and approaches that help students relate to and engage with the material. This principle is more effectively elucidated with examples:

• Adopting a participatory design approach where student input results in user-friendly features and student-accessible designs being incorporated [2].
• Using accessible contexts such as food and beverages (F&B) as the premise for the project [3].
• Providing extensive training in the form of a structured introductory example before tasking students with a more complex project [4].

Principle 3: Authenticity

Authentic learning activities can be classified into four categories: 1) context authenticity where the learning context is relevant to future professional practice, 2) task authenticity where the skills developed are relevant in professional practice, 3) impact authenticity where the task has an impact relatable beyond the classroom and 4) personal authenticity where the task resonates with the individual and has a personal impact [5]. Examples of authenticity include:

• Incorporating tools and features from professional practice such as industrial / research grade equipment, designs or tools which facilitates context and task authenticity [2].
• Using accessible and authentic contexts like F&B simultaneously facilitates all the modes of categories of authenticity [3].

Principle 4: Reliability

Reliability of the resources / project is essential for students to have a meaningful experience. When things do not work, students do not get the full learning experience and often stress excessively about their lab reports and grades. This was one of the main teething issues faced in the Knowledge Labs. Reliability can be achieved in the following ways:

• Beta test the resource to a level above and beyond what is expected of students so the resource is known to work at all reasonable operating conditions. The teaching assistant can also be involved in this process [2].
• Consider a virtual laboratory / simulations to either complement or replace physical labs as computational platforms by nature provide far more consistent results [6].

Principle 5: Safety

The safety of the resources and the overall project is an essential consideration as educators have an important obligation to students to provide them with a safe learning environment. This can be achieved in the following ways:

• Adopt professional practices in equipment design and activity risk assessments when design resources and the project [7]
• Involve students in performing risk assessments and use the opportunity to share how various safety features were included.

Analysis of Principles:

Kolb’s experiential cycle is an excellent lens to use to understand how the various design principles when incorporated effectively activate various aspects of the learning cycle and therefore the entire learning process. Each of the principles are shown in Figure 2, with safety not directly impacting the learning cycle, but serving as an essential backdrop to which any learning should occur in.

Conclusion

The five design principles outlined here are the emergent product from the overhauling of the Knowledge labs and have been found to be the summation of the various efforts made to provide the best possible learning environment and experience to students. Efforts by other authors in designing experiential learning resources for independent learning have either consciously or unconsciously incorporated one or more of the five design principles. The consideration and inclusion of these design principles into the resource development workflow will aid the development of effective learning tools for students.

References

[1] E. Bogdanov, C. Salzmann, and D. Gillet, Widget-based approach for remote control labs, vol. 9, no. PART 1. IFAC, 2012.

[2] P. Inguva et al., “Advancing experiential learning through participatory design,” Educ. Chem. Eng., vol. 25, pp. 16–21, Oct. 2018.

[3] M. Xie et al., “Accelerating Students’ Learning of Chromatography with an Experiential Module on Process Development and Scaleup,” J. Chem. Educ., 2020.

[4] V. V Acuna, R. M. Hopper, and R. J. Yoder, “Computer-Aided Drug Design for the Organic Chemistry Laboratory Using Accessible Molecular Modeling Tools,” J. Chem. Educ., p. acs.jchemed.9b00592, Feb. 2020.

[5] J. Strobel, J. Wang, N. R. Weber, and M. Dyehouse, “The role of authenticity in design-based learning environments: The case of engineering education,” Comput. Educ., vol. 64, pp. 143–152, 2013.

[6] B. Balakrishnan and P. C. Woods, “A comparative study on real lab and simulation lab in communication engineering from students’ perspectives,” Eur. J. Eng. Educ., vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 159–171, 2013.

[7] M. Gunasekera, S. Ahmed, and F. Khan, “Integration of process safety in equipment design: A framework for academic learning activity,” Educ. Chem. Eng., vol. 30, pp. 32–39, 2020.