UO Lab Expectations

Chemical Engineering, Brigham Young University

Introduction

UO lab is fairly unique in the department of Chemical Engineering because so many sections are taught each semester, each by a different member of the faculty. To ensure students receive the same experience in each section, the Undergraduate and UO Lab Committees have developed the following expectations for the course. These procedures have been developed under the guiding principles found in the department ambition statement, specifically Priorities 1 - 3, which are replicated here.

  1. Problem solver, innovator, and quality engineer: Identify desired problem-solving and innovative skills of our students, identify key deficiencies, and develop and implement a plan to help students overcome these deficiencies.
  2. Excellent instruction:Enhance the reputation and visibility of our undergraduate program through optimized curriculum opportunities that strengthen student learning and provide opportunities for faculty to develop and share best practices.
  3. Highly sought after:Develop and implement a strategy for enhancing the professional preparation of our students and their ability to obtain employment or attend the graduate school of their choice.

Expectations

1: Faculty Preparation (Priority 2)

Faculty should know how to safely perform and analyze each experiment. This will require instructors to run each experiment themselves before teaching the class. They should understand the safety of each experiment and be able to quiz students on safe operation of each piece of equipment. This should not be left to the lab managers to do. The lab managers may assist when needed, but instructors should take a lead role in helping students understand each experiment.

Faculty members who are not well-versed in the UO lab experiments—including the safe operation of the equipment, the analysis of the data, and the expected results—should attend the faculty workshop held during the Spring/Summer term before they are scheduled to teach the class. Even those who have taught UO Lab previously are encouraged to attend.

2: Faculty Engagement (Priority 2)

Faculty are expected to physically be in the lab during the time of the class. A large part of the learning that is done in UO lab occurs when faculty have one-on-one interactions with individual students or teams. Faculty are expected to speak to each group every class period and engage in questioning to help deepen their learning. This can only happen if they know the labs. (See Expectation 1) Also, faculty must be available for safety reasons.

If faculty are properly engaged and using a Socratic approach, there will be little down time during class. As such, they should not use class time for research, research meetings, or other responsibilities. There may be one or two days a semester, especially towards the end, when students will not need as much help and the instructor may have some time to work on other things, but this should not be the norm. Spring term which usually has fewer students, may be more flexible on this, but the faculty should be careful to not compromise the learning.

One of the main goals of meeting with each student/team each class period is to help deepen understanding of the physical processes giving rise to the phenomena observed and reported. Help students understand not only on the mathematical level, but also on the molecular and graphical levels. Your interactions with the students should help them develop better critical thinking and problem solving rather than recipe following. Make sure they know that you have high expectations in regards to their actual learning and not just the deliverable.

3: Student Independence (Priority 1)

One purpose of UO lab is to help the students learn to solve a problem where all of the pieces of the solution are not nicely “packaged.” Faculty “help” should not remove this opportunity. As such, faculty should not give students detailed instructions on which conditions to run nor how to analyze the data. Students should not be provided with calculation templates or computer tools to perform the specific calculations. Video trainings, if used, should be restricted to training on how to run the equipment and should not give hints or advice on which conditions to run to solve the problem. Remember that the idea is to help students approach the problem independently and go through the mental exercise of defining the problem and identifying the solution from the many possible approaches. They should also get into the habit of finding the necessary properties and equations by themselves.

4: Report Grading (Priority 1)

Part of being a quality engineer (see Priority 1) is developing solutions that actually work. In the workplace this is rewarded with continued employment and monetary compensation. At the university this reward comes in the form of grades. As such, grading should accurately reflect student performance.

  1. Good grades should not be given for bad data.
  2. Good grades should not be given for bad analysis.
  3. Good grades should not be given if mistakes are made.
  4. Wrong or unsound engineering solutions should not be given good grades.

Accurate grading can only be accomplished if faculty know the experiments (see Expectation 1).

5: Professionalism (Priorities 1 and 3)

Part of UO Lab is to simulate the professional environment. As such students are expected to 1) know and adhere to all safety standards, 2) attend each class, arrive on time, and not leave early, and 3) adhere to the dress and grooming standards. Part of the grade in UO lab should support these outcomes through attendance points that are awarded each day. In this regard, the following point deductions should be employed.

  1. No attendance points are awarded for any day where a student fails to adhere to the Dress and Grooming Standards.
  2. No attendance points should be awarded for any day where a student fails to wear close-toed shoes or long pants (female engineers may wear skirt/dress on the day of the final presentation).
  3. Tardiness should result in a deduction of ½ of the daily attendance points.
  4. Students who operate any equipment in a manner that damages the equipment, results in a user-preventable accident, or in any unsafe manner will incur a significant penalty. One example isrunning the shell and tube heat exchanger so that the water vaporizes. Another is not knowing how to run the equipment or shut it down. All team members should know how to safely run the equipment.

Students should not take other classes that are taught during UO Lab class hours. They should not attend research group or club meetings during class hours.

Exceptions to the attendance requirement may be made for job-search activities, professional meeting attendance, or university-excused activities. Sports events, social engagements, etc. do not constitute legitimate excuses.

6: Assessment of Performance

To help faculty improve the UO Lab experience, the UG Committee will assess the performance of UO Lab instructors in regard to the policies found above. This will occur during the normal ABET assessments as well as visits to the classroom. Feedback will be communicated through the normal ABET assessment process.

Page 1 of 3Last Updated 5/9/2016