TEACHING INNOVATION PROJECT FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LEARNING MATHEMATICS IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEGREES

The University of Cadiz (UCA) has developed the program “Proyecto Europa” with the aim of joining all the actions for the adaptation and improvement of university teaching, facing the new EHEA (European Higher Education Area). Among other activities, UCA set up in the course 2005-06 a call for university teachers in order to propose innovative education projects; the so-called “Integration of the mathematical modelization in the learning of Chemical Engineering: an innovation” is one of them. With it, a group of lecturers in Mathematics and Chemical Engineering interested in the integration of concepts and proceedings of both areas formed a workshop.

The project has a double objective: in the one hand, getting the students to understand the necessity of the study and comprehension of maths and its application in different knowledge areas and, on the other hand, producing educational materials for the mathematical modelization as a tool for learning/teaching. In this sense, the group has made an effort to recruit chemical engineering students for the elective subject “Numerical Analysis in Engineering”, a course designed with those aims.

In the present work, academical results for this subject in the course 2008/09 are presented, including the presentation of the new learning methodology. As an advance of the results, it is important to point out that the number of students registered in the course has increased in 100% comparing with the previous year.