Feedback Control of an Acid-Neutralization Reactor: An Integrated Learning and Student Assessment Module

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

Investigators

Abstract

Engineering - Chemical (53) Our work addresses the fundamental national needs of engineering student retention because it provides a project/inquiry -based experience for first year engineering students who have not yet committed to engineering. To address this need we have created a comprehensive, web-integrated, learning and student assessment module. This module is based on a feedback-controlled acid neutralization laboratory experiment. It has been designed for our first year engineering students and includes topics such as feedback control, which is of interest to many of the engineering disciplines. Our experiment also incorporates the use of mass conservation equations (of interest to chemical and environmental engineers) and modeling of engineering systems with computer - based simulation which is of interest to all engineers. A key part of our module was the development of a web-based student (Primary Trait Analysis) assessment tool. This assessment tool will be "wrapped around" the simulator so that instructors can "observe" and then provide feedback about how students go through the process of using a simulations tool to explore, understand, and interpret data from a physical experiment. From this, instructors would gain crucial insight into student learning pathways and thus determine both how, and how well students are learning. Further it endeavors to show how to integrate web-based information and the use of an engineering simulator to explore and understand a physical experiment. The details necessary to reproduce the experiment, the simulator, the web-based information and the assessment procedure are available for testing and implementation at other institutions.