CHEN 3401w -- New Course

Mon Jun 29 15:18:33 2009

Approvals Received:

Department
on 06-29-09
by Laura Ericksen
(erick073@umn.edu)

Approvals Pending:

College/Dean > LE > Catalog > PeopleSoft Manual Entry

Effective Status:

Active

Effective Term:

1103 - Spring 2010

Course:

CHEN 3401W

Institution:
Campus:

UMNTC - Twin Cities
UMNTC - Twin Cities

Career:

UGRD

College:

TIOT - Institute of Technology

Department:

11093 - Chemical Eng & Mat Sci

General

Course Title Short:

Junior Chem Eng Lab

Course Title Long:

Junior Chemical Engineering Lab

Max-Min Credits
for Course:

2.0 to 2.0 credit(s)

Catalog
Description:

Principles/techniques of efficient design, structure, measurement, planning, analysis, and presentation of experiments and experimental results. Experimental problems in energy balances, fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer. Design of new systems using data obtained in lab. Oral/written presentations.

Print in Catalog?:

Yes

CCE Catalog
Description:

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Topics Course:

Honors Course:

Delivery Mode(s):

Classroom

Instructor
Contact Hours:

6.0 hours per week

Years most
frequently offered:

Every academic year

Term(s) most
frequently offered:

Spring

Component 1:

LAB (no final exam)

Component 2:

LEC (with final exam)

Auto-Enroll
Course:

Yes

Graded
Component:

LAB

Academic
Progress Units:

Not allowed to bypass limits.
2.0 credit(s)

Financial Aid
Progress Units:

Not allowed to bypass limits.
2.0 credit(s)

Repetition of
Course:

Repetition not allowed.

Course
Prerequisites
for Catalog:

[[3006 or &3006], [3102 or &3102], [3201 or &3201], [Chem 2121 or equiv], Chem 2311, upper div ChEn major]

Course
Equivalency:

No course equivalencies

Consent
Requirement:

No required consent

Enforced
Prerequisites:
(course-based or
non-course-based)

[[3006 or &3006], [3102 or &3102], [3201 or &3201], [Chem 2121 or equiv], Chem 2311, upper div ChEn major]

Editor Comments:

Proposal Changes:

History Information:

6/29/09 Chem 2121 was mistakenly listed as concurrent pre-req for ChEn 3401w and Chem 2311 was omitted when the course plan was recently updated. The changes correct that mistake. LLE

05/20/2009 - This is a copy of CHEN 4402W - Chemical Engineering Lab II

Faculty
Sponsor Name:

Wei-Shou Hu/Alon McCormick

Faculty
Sponsor E-mail Address:

Liberal Education

Requirement
this course fulfills:

None

Other requirement
this course fulfills:

None

Criteria for
Core Courses:

Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed core requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or method.

Core courses must meet the following requirements:

They explicitly help students understand what liberal education is, how the content and the substance of this course enhance a liberal education, and what this means for them as students and as citizens.

They employ teaching and learning strategies that engage students with doing the work of the field, not just reading about it.

They include small group experiences (such as discussion sections or labs) and use writing as appropriate to the discipline to help students learn and reflect on their learning.

They do not (except in rare and clearly justified cases) have prerequisites beyond the University's entrance requirements.

They are offered on a regular schedule.

They are taught by regular faculty or under exceptional circumstances by instructors on continuing appointments. Departments proposing instructors other than regular faculty must provide documentation of how such instructors will be trained and supervised to ensure consistency and continuity in courses.

<no text provided>

Criteria for
Theme Courses:

Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed theme requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or methods.

Theme courses have the common goal of cultivating in students a number of habits of mind:

thinking ethically about important challenges facing our society and world;
reflecting on the shared sense of responsibility required to build and maintain community;
connecting knowledge and practice;
fostering a stronger sense of our roles as historical agents.

Writing Intensive

Propose this course
as Writing Intensive
curriculum:

Yes

Question 1:

What types of writing (e.g., reading essay, formal lab reports, journaling) are likely to be assigned? Include the page total for each writing assignment. Indicate which assignment(s) students will be required to revise and resubmit after feedback by the instructor or the graduate TA.

See paper copy.

Question 2:

How does assigning a significant amount of writing serve the purpose of this course?

Writing lab reports helps students to prepare for careers in engineering and science. Clearly and accurately describing the results of an experiment or a study is an important skill, best learned by practice, for essentially all practitioners of engineering and science. The Chemical Engineering program is renowned amongst employers for the attention given to communicative skills.

Question 3:

What types of instruction will students receive on the writing aspect of the assignments?

Though we do not provide formal instruction in writing, we provide substantial practical instruction. The instructor has established a format for the lab reports, and he/she reads, edits and comments upon the presentation and writing style, as well as noting grammatical errors. Reports are returned to students throughout the quarter so that the students have the benefit of the instructor's comments when preparing the next lab report. Students are expected to make progress on the issues raised in previous reports. Students are required to revise and return selected reports.

Question 4:

How will the students' grades depend on their writing performance? What percentage of the overall grade will be dependent on the quality and level of the students' writing compared with the course content?

The grades on lab reports constitute 25-30% of the course grade. In practice, the assessment of writing quality constitutes 60-75% of the grade assigned to each lab report. All students are carefully guided in performing the experiments, but even if their experiment doesn't work out, they are given access to the correct results, so all students have access to the same basic set of facts. Therefore, the presentation becomes an important factor in distinguishing between good and poor lab reports.

Question 5:

If graduate students or peer tutors will be assisting in this course, what role will they play in regard to teaching writing?

The role of TAs in teaching writing is not yet known because of unresolved resource issues. In the present course, lab reports are first read by a TA for technical accuracy, then the instructor reads the reports and assigns a grade. One possibility under WI is that lab reports that have been returned to students for revision will be read by the TA and discussed with the student, as appropriate. TAs will be supervised by the course instructor.

Question 6:

How will the assistants be trained and supervised?

Training TAs for teaching writing is a question CLE must answer; it should not be the responsibility of the Departments. However, faculty in our department spend a substantial amount of time teaching our grad. students to write for a chemical engineering audience, and we expect these efforts to benefit undergrads as well when these same grad. students TA. Each student's report will receive the attention of a faculty member; the TA's efforts will supplement, not replace, these efforts.

Question 7:

Write up a sample assignment handout here for a paper that students will revise and resubmit after receiving feedback on the initial draft.

Two lab periods are provided for each experiment. The written lab report is due one week after the completion of the experimental studies and is to be handed in at the start of the lab period. Note that there are four complete written lab reports on the first 4 lab experiments due for the course. The last or 5th lab report is in the form of a 30-minute oral presentation. All reports and overhead transparencies must be written using the computer, word processor for the text and tables, and the Macintosh Cricket Graph or other suitable PC programs for the graphs. The Appendix should be hand written. (Use the word processor for Consultant's report.)
See paper copy for Report Format.

Readme link. Course Syllabus requirement section begins below

Course Syllabus

Course Syllabus:

For new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed, please provide a syllabus that includes the following information: course goals and description; format;structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (text, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated. The University "Syllabi Policy" can be found here

The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" found here. Course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification. This course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester.

(Please limit text to about 12 pages. Text copied and pasted from other sources will not retain formatting and special characters might not copy properly.)

Please see syllabus for CHEN 4402W