(643c) Feedback- and Engagement-Enhanced Education: A Newly-Designed Senior Course, Chemical Product Design

A new technical elective course, Chemical Product Design, has recently been offered by the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore. This course is targeted to senior students (undergraduate Year 4 or masterâ??s) to equipped them with skill of designing high-value-added specialty chemical products (e.g., devices, medicine, personal-care products), as an supplement of traditional process design skill (for commodity products). It covers the basic methodology with illustrative examples from many areas (based on the textbook: Chemical Product Design, by Cussler and Moggridge, 2^nd edition, 2011). The course involves active-learning lectures and student teaching (which is recorded for self-reflection and feedback/evaluation from the lecturer, teaching assistant and peers) so that students gain competence of thinking divergently and critically, and confidently solving open-ended problems through group discussion. Besides the technical aspects, the module also emphasizes engineering professionalism (including ethics and sustainability) and communication skills (by supervised group discussion and student teaching with feedback loop). After completion of the course, students are able to apply the basic methodology to design a product in group, write a professional report, teach others based on the learning objectives, and evaluate otherâ??s teaching.