Abstract:

During the last academic year, 2009-2010, the first year students of chemical engineering (Enginyeria Tècnica Industrial esp. en Químca Industrial, ETIQI) of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), in Tarragona (Spain), have been enrolled in an integrated project (IP) with the aim to design an acetylsalicylic acid production plant.

In order to develop the aforementioned design project the first year students were divided in 3 teams according to their technical capabilities, professional responsibilities (if any) and Belbin roles. Teams were composed by 7 to 9 first year students and 1 fourth year chemical engineering student (Enginyeria Química, EQ), acting as team leader. The latest being responsible of planning, organizing and monitoring the development of the project over the two semesters.

Teamwork was built around a weekly team meeting of compulsory attendance. The meeting agenda was fixed previously by the leader and communicated to all team members. In this weekly meeting the team members discussed on the on-going and performed technical tasks, agreed on the tasks to do in the coming days, and decided on the need for additional meetings. Afterwards, the meeting agreements were also reflected in an adequate report.

To perform the tasks students had about six hours per week, which were released by the subjects of each semester. The subjects gave these hours to the integrated project. During this time the responsible teacher of a subject did not give any lecture or practice but was in the classroom with the students acting as a professional advisor.

This learning structure was formed to fulfil with the so called Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology, which has been applied in our school, Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria Química (ETSEQ) from 1996. The design project needed to be integrating, in the sense that students must need to use the main concepts given in all the subjects involved in the corresponding semesters in order to carry out the chemical plant design.

At the end of each the semester, the students delivered a final report including the final plant design (considering all technical objectives), and they also presented a poster which was defended in front of all the teachers involved.

Keywords:

Chemical Engineering.