Engineering Critical Thinking Skills in Science Graduates

1. Engineering Critical Thinking Skills in Science Graduates Teaching for Critical Thinking Promotion of interaction among students Posing open-ended questions Encouraging students to relate problems to other courses or their own prior experiences The Critical Thinking Skill-set Evaluation of Information is it valid? relevant? can it be used in structuring or solving the problem? Information Relationships finding analogies and other relationships between pieces of information Problem Solving evaluating methods and alternative solutions to treat the problem Background to this Study MSc in Bioprocess Engineering (Level 9 NFQ) Small class of mixed academic backgrounds (Fig 1). 75% of students possessed a BSc primary degree in varying science subjects (Fig 2), of those, 2 students also held an MSc. with varying amounts of time spent in industry prior to undertaking MSc (Fig 2). The majority of students (41%) had no industrial experience. 13% of students were taking the course part-time on a modular basis. Fig 1 Primary Degrees Fig 2 BSc Qualifications Fig 3 Years in Industry Tools Peer Learning (pre-Module) e.g. students divided into groups, assigned the task of suggesting at least 5 upstream and at least 5 downstream processes that would occur in the production of a biopharmaceutical - task performed prior to module being taught without access to internet etc. All groups found to be capable of performing task to a high standard – however individually, the majority of students would not be able to complete the task based on their academic and work experience background Problem Based Learning (during and post-Module) Continuous Assessment for the module posed as a mini design problem, encompassing all learning outcomes of the course (mass balance, energy balance, reactor configurations & mixing, heat and mass transfer calculations) Individual Design Project Develop reactor configuration based on shear sensitive cells Perform energy balance based on proposed reactor configuration (agitator choice & aeration – gassed power) Heat transfer calculations for plant water return temp Open ended problem no “right” answer Limitations Critical thinking skills cannot be taught in isolation - Prior knowledge of subject matter is essential Student attitude to group work at MSc level poor – needs to be address to take advantage of peer learning opportunities FutureWork Design module with research element – Group project with oral presentation and essay – peer assessment via grading rubrics – emphasis on originality and novel integration of processes Author Dr. Jenny Lawler, Lecturer in Bioprocess Engineering School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9 Tel: +353 1 700 5394 Email: jenny.lawler@dcu.ie