Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 701 de 957
optimal 'recipe' for industrially-sized, Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) reactors which
deposit thin films on polished silicon wafers, maximize utilization of the expensive and
hazardous reactant (referred to as DCS), and minimize the development and
manufacturing costs. To achieve these objectives, student teams must find suitable reactor
input variable values (temperatures along the reactor, flow rates for two reactants,
pressure, and reaction time) that result in films of uniform thickness at the desired target
value. The instructor’s learning objectives focus on professional development skills (e.g.,
working in teams, communication) and integration of core engineering science concepts
(e.g., material balances, reaction kinetics, statistics).
A typical student team devotes a substantial 15 - 25 hours to this complex, three-week
project. A summary of key project milestones and corresponding opportunities for
feedback is shown in Table 1. The feedback analysed in this paper occurs during the initial
coaching session, shaded in blue. In this 20-30-minute meeting, students must deliver to
the coach a memorandum that specifies the values for their first run variables, a strategy
for subsequent runs and experimental data evaluation, and a budget (in virtual dollars) for
the entire project. This assignment places an unusual responsibility on the students,
requiring them to formulate and solve a problem that requires integration of prior
knowledge from previous courses. In the initial coaching session, the coach acts as a
mentor or boss would in industry. The coach asks questions to guide the students in
further developing their strategy, initial variable values, and budget. Feedback is carefully
tailored to engage students in identifying gaps in their current design and directing
attention to methods for addressing those gaps.
Table 1: Timeline and opportunities for feedback in the Virtual CVD Laboratory Project.
Research Questions
Using the episodes framework, what evidence is there that the semi-structured feedback
sessions in the Virtual CVD Laboratory Project address the: student perspective of task
completion, instructor intent of knowledge integration, and authentic, industrial context of
the project? Ultimately, we are interested in understanding how these elements interact
with one another to contribute to student learning.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011