Official (Closed) - Non Sensitive

Challenge

I am a lecturer of the Diploma of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and my challenge is to improve  the T&L efficacy of my module, Reaction Engineering. Two assumptions are that some students could not  do well for this module because 1) poor mathematic skills and 2) difficulty to follow the lecturing. The  project scope includes 1 student who is doing very well, i.e., A-grade for Common Test and 10 students  who are weak, i.e., C or lower grade for Common Test. The project would last about 10 weeks, starting  rightly after the Common Test results are released and ending at the last week of the semester. We will  try to determine how much improvement can be made through two parallel activities, i.e., strengthening  their mathematic skills or tuition given by the A-grade student.

Selection

We would try the learning launch tool, which is the best tool fitting this project and helping us quickly test  out our idea.

Application

For our first learning launch, we focused on the improvement in mathematics. What we did was to  conduct a 10-week mathematics tuition session for 5 weak students. The tuition session given by the A- grade student covered mathematics contents relevant to Reaction Engineering, such as solving  simultaneous equation, quadratic equation, differentiation, and integration. For each topic, practices  were done during the tuition session to make sure that they could understand the content and were able  to apply the skills.

For the second learning launch, we asked the A-grade student to do a 10-week tuition session for Reaction  Engineering. In particular, the A-grade student worked as a teaching assistant in the parallel session,  repeating the content taught during the lecture session and going through examples for them. The A- grade student should use his own language or style instead of following the lecturer.

Insight

By applying the learning launch tool, we identified the assumptions and designed launches to test the  assumptions. The results of the final examination showed that the weak students from both groups  improved their grade for Reaction Engineering while the group of students taking mathematic tuition  improved more than another group. The observation confirmed both assumptions and disclosed the key  to improve the T&L of Reaction Engineering.

Approach

The project shows that the learning launch is the appropriate tool for the improvement of Reaction  Engineering T&L. We would review the insight gained through the two launches and incorporate it into

Official (Closed) - Non Sensitive

future launch designs. Subsequent launch designs should be based on the insight gained and the  improvement obtained and included in the syllabus for future T&L activities.

