Creating a New Electrochemical Engineering Course from Scratch: From Defining Learning Outcomes to Overcoming Teaching Challenges During a Pandemic

Abstract

Although generally overlooked for many decades, issues such as climate change, the rise of renewable energy and the resulting increase in low-cost, green electricity have finally brought some recognition to a discipline, Electrochemical Engineering, which covers a wide range of important industrial applications: from industrial electrolysis (e.g. chlor-alkali industry, production of primary aluminium) or surface finishing (e.g. electroplating, anodising) to energy conversion and storage (e.g. batteries, fuel cells). However, Electrochemical Engineering has generally been (and still is) neglected for many years in undergraduate Chemical Engineering curricula despite the current (and past/future) importance of this field in industry. The School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, after identifying this gap in the chemical engineering curriculum a few years ago, decided to tackle this problem in a way that not many chemical-engineering-teaching institutions would have expected: rather than embedding Electrochemistry in other related courses, the approach would be to create a full course on Electrochemical Engineering for the very first time at the School.This presentation covers the ‘journey’ of the creation and delivery of this course offered to undergraduate Chemical Engineering students at the University of Edinburgh, summarising the main tasks (e.g. from the definition of learning outcomes and course content to the innovative teaching delivery approaches implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic) and challenges (e.g. students’ lack of retention of background knowledge in chemistry and physics [1]) faced during the development of the course. Pedagogical elements such as (i) course design and structure, (ii) delivery, (iii) feedback to students and (iv) assessment will be discussed during the presentation, which will also include some suggestions on approaches and tools (e.g. ABC learning design [2], flipped classroom methodology [3], project-based learning [4], feedback as a dialogue [5]).References:[1] Garzon, F.H., Tsui, L.-k., Svihla, V., Datye, A., Meet Abstr, MA2019-02, 2174, (2019). DOI:10.1149/MA2019-02/48/2174[2] Young, C., Perović, N., Procedia Soc Behav Sci, 228, 390 (2016). DOI:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.07.058[3] Chen, L., Chen, T.L., Chen, N.S., Australas J Educ Technol, 31, 621 (2015). DOI:10.14742/ajet.1876[4] Long, J.M., Kaynak, A., Paulino, M., Chandrasekaran, S., Int J Innov Online Edu, 2, (2018). DOI:10.1615/IntJInnovOnlineEdu.2019029778[5] Esterhazy, R., Nerland, M., Damşa, C., Teach High Educ, (2019). DOI:10.1080/13562517.2019.1686699