Abstract:

This work describes the results of the main tasks of the educational innovation project called IQLABS. This project coordinated by the Innovation Group in Chemical and Environmental Engineering (IDIQMA) of the University of Valencia, aims at proposing an enhanced teaching-learning model for laboratory subjects integrated in the Chemical Engineering degree of this university. This enhancement is focused on facilitating the students’ acquisition of both specific and general competencies, as well as transversal competencies mainly centred on communication on science and technology. The project has been structured in five main tasks. Firstly, the current teaching guides of each of the subjects which integrate experimental tasks have been assessed, considering the objective of the subjects, the methodologies used, and the competencies which are currently being worked on. The information gathered has been summarised in a matrix that integrates each experimental task by subject and course. The critical points detected from this first evaluation are that transversal competencies should be included in the current teaching guides and that more evaluation criteria should be implemented to assess the level of acquisition of transversal competencies. In addition, within this first task, surveys and interviews designed ad-hoc, have been used to evaluate each laboratory subject from a three-dimensional point of view (students, teachers and coordinators). Main results show that lecturers expect that students acquire a higher level of competencies than they actually get. In contrast, students’ surveys denote, in general, that most of the expected competencies to be achieved are actually achieved. Main teachers’ recommendations are focused on reinforcing communication skills (mainly written), problem solving skills, and critical thinking, among others. On the other hand, students’ surveys illustrate, among other suggestions, that written laboratory reports should be reduced in number, and that more support is required to enhance the acquisition of written skills. As a second project task, the models implemented in other universities have been assessed, obtaining good practices to favour, overall, the acquisition of transversal competencies in laboratory subjects. Based on these results, a planning at different levels (intra-subject, intra-course and inter-course level) has been developed which will facilitate the gradual and sequential acquisition of specific, general and transversal skills and, at the same time, will ensure their consolidation in students, so that the learning process is developed in a natural and progressive way focused on student significant learning.

Keywords:

Chemical Engineering, Innovation, Laboratory subjects, Transversal competencies.