Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 706 de 957
Coach: Temperature, what else?
S1: Concentration
Coach: Concentration, so what happens to concentration as pressure goes down?
S3: Concentration goes down
Coach: Concentration goes down
S3: If the pressure goes down too much it will limit how concentrated
S1: And the reaction rate goes down, concentration goes down
The students then recognize that pressure determines the concentration which in turn
impacts the reaction rate; this illustrates the strong link between a student objective (what
value will we pick?) and the instructor objective (integrating the concept of reaction
kinetics into this authentic task). An example of project contextualization is illustrated at
the conclusion of the reaction kinetics episode with a small episode focused on situating
the project in the industrial context, shown below. This situating episode links the concept
of reaction kinetics to its impact on high-volume manufacturing.
Coach: Alright, and what’s the problem with that in high volume manufacturing
facilities?
S1: You have waste
S3: You can’t get things done very fast
Coach: You can’t get things done very fast and so you
S1: Okay
S3: It will still get deposited or it will still get there, it will take a lot longer and it’s
not
Coach: You’re making less product than your competitor.
S3: It might be uniform, you might have high utilization but oh we take 4 hours. Wait
4 hours? Why are you taking 4 hours?
The last row illustrated in Figure 1 represents approximately the final quarter of discourse
and consists of the meeting wrap-up discussion. During this time, students may ask final
questions regarding aspects they are unclear about. In addition, many topics previously
explored in depth are touched upon as a reminder of what aspects of the student’s design
strategy merit attention. During this portion of the meeting, for example, pressure is
revisited in a student initiated discussion where one student asks the coach if there is
more to consider with pressure and another student responds that their pressure is fine.
The coach leaves that input variable for the students to explore, without adding additional
insight.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011