Abstract:

Many and varied problems have arisen during the Covid pandemic, which made the 2020-21 academic year a special one, both in the methodologies to be used and in the search for motivating elements for the students. These two aspects have been developed in the present study within the framework of the Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering, in the Chemical Process Design course, which belongs to the Chemical Engineering knowledge area. The innovative methodology has been applied in four groups simultaneously, with 170 students in total. The objective was to design a real industrial chemical process using a chemical process simulator, such as Aspen Plus. It is an open project, in which work has been carried out in groups of 3 to 4 members, with each member determining his/her own role. The open project has been developed in a cooperative and collaborative way. Flipped Learning was used for the development of this project. Although the classes were face-to-face, due to the isolation of some of our students, different audiovisual material was developed for the correct follow-up of the classes. The isolated students were able to follow the classes online through the Blackboard Collaborate program. Therefore, the aim of the flipped classes was two: to improve the progress of the classes by deepening the knowledge required for the correct design of the projects, and on the other hand, to help the isolated students to follow the lectures.

This project has also taken into account the integration of sustainable development goals in the field of energy, tackling climate change, and has worked on this through flipped classroom methodologies and cooperative work. This aspect is very important, as it is necessary to transmit key skills qualifications, rather than just the engineering concepts.

As mentioned above, for the flipped classroom and the incorporation of the Sustainable Development Goals, audiovisual material has been developed and uploaded to the Moodle platform of the course. These links were used by the students to prepare the lessons in advanced, regardless if they were confined or not. The prepared material was well received by the students, as it enabled them to better prepare the lessons and to have the possibility to watch them again during the development of the project.

More than 90 % of the total number of students have used the videos, and above all, they have done it at home. The pandemic has conditioned our habits, and today, more than ever the fact of having usable material at home, is essential to help students in their acquisition of knowledge. The application of these methodologies and the SDG has generated greater student motivation, improving the use of face-to-face classes and the quality of the work compared to previous courses.

After the academic year 2020-21, the following conclusions have been reached:
a) The integration of sustainable development objectives in projects in the area of chemical engineering provides a benefit from the point of view of student motivation and knowledge on the sustainable development objectives.
b) The flipped classroom methodology enhances self-learning, marking the students in their learning period, for which the audiovisual material prepared by the professors is essential.
c) The academic marks have improved compared to the last academic years, so it seems that the mix of flipped classroom and SDGs is a very good combination in terms of achieving the learning goals.

Keywords:

Flipped classroom, Covid, sustainable development goals.