In using projects to teach engineering design, the instructor faces the question of how to structure the process to insure an effective learning environment without compromising the independence and open-ended nature of the student's experience. The instructor faces the problems of student time scallop (the tendency to increase effort exponentially as the final deadline approaches), of potential laggards in a group (students doing little work and getting credit for the group's results) and of students learning appropriate work documentation habits.All of these problems are project management issues and project management tools can be used to solve them. This includes both the instructor's and the student's use of project management tools. In our process, students use three key techniques to address these issues: 1. a milestone schedule, 2. regular project review meetings and memos and 3. design memos which document each design task as the project progresses. Greatest success results when students utilize all three of these tasks.Both students and instructors have experienced reduced time scallop. A memo portfolio provides a measure of individual student performance. Students turn in improved projects, learn some basic project management tools, and gain experience at regular documentation of their work.
A number of recent journal articles are devoted to writing (1), communicating (2 and references therein), teaching techniques (3, 4), and involving students in scientific discussions (5), but few articles have appeared that can help students become familiar with reading scientific literature. Many instructors already include the reading of research articles as part of a student's normal assignments. We would like to propose a method for teaching the reading of research literature that helps a student develop confidence and understanding. It has been used successfully for developing literature skills with high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in the U.S. engineering curriculum. The method, which has the Japanese name KENSHU, was developed by modifying a system used at a top Japanese national university.KENSHU is Japanese for research understanding. The basic steps of KENSHU are (i) take a recent foreign (English) scientific article and divide it into sections, (ii) read and discuss a single section with a more experienced classmate, (iii) translate the section, (iv) continue step iii until all sections are finished, (v) prepare a onepage summary of the article with key graphs and tables, and (vi) present the findings of the article at a miniconference.In this work, we have put into words the aspects of reading a scientific article incorporating the KENSHU framework. We applied the method to U.S. university juniors, seniors, and graduate students as well as junior and senior high school students.
KENSHU Implementation And OverviewStudents have their own individual article to study throughout a given semester or research session. We begin by providing each student with the first page of a recent research article and set deadlines for completion of KENSHU guideline steps noted below. We act as a facilitator of information transfer and suggest resources where students can obtain additional information or explanations. The students work in groups (each has a different paper) and follow KENSHU guidelines to develop a final one-page summary of the article and an oral presentation to explain its concepts. We incorporate KENSHU into our courses, which allows us to give stu-
Brining the laboratory experience into closer alignment with necessary industrial skills by emphasizing experimental selection, design, analysis, group problem-solving, and peer communication.
Solid molar volumes of interest to supercritical extraction were measured for a number of alkaloids, spices, and other substances at 298 K with a gas buoyancy technique. The values obtained were 240.2 cm3/mol, atropine; 288.1 cm3/mol, berberine hydrochloride hydrate; 320.2 cm3/mol, brucine dihydrate; 289.8 cmS/mol, capsaicin; 893.0 cm3/mol, ergotamine tartrate dihydrats, 109.9 cmVmol, naphthalene; 243.2 cmVmol, penicillin V; 226.4 cmVmol, piperine; 253.0 cm3/mol, quinine; 242.0 cm3/mol, strychnine; 120.5 cm3/mol, theobromine; 123.7 cmYmol, theophylline; and 296.8 cm3/mol, yohimbine hydrochloride. The group contribution method of Fedora was used to predict the solid molar volume data. It was found that Fedora' method generally underestimated the solid molar volumes but could predict the data to within h11%.
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