CHEN3600 – Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering Fall 2010Chemical Engineering Department Bonus 1T.D. Placek Auburn University

Bonus 1Learning Experience

Although the mechanics of effective technical writing have not been specifically addressed this term, it is still appropriate to provide opportunities to reinforce writing skills. In this case, the writing assignment reflects another frequently addressed course topic, namely effective learning.

Various lectures and discussions have taken place concerning Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, the Curve of Forgetting, Critical Thinking, Macro Abilities and Micro Skills, departmental requirements for the Concept Inventory Exam (especially “Explain” questions), etc.

Write a well organized, informative report that discusses your “personal journey” to become an effective learner with particular emphasis on how this class has affected or assisted you in that journey.

The purpose of this assignment is two-fold… to provide you the opportunity to reflect on your progress or lack of progress in understanding the expectations of an engineer working in an industrial setting and to provide the department with additional insight about obstacles and techniques to improve student learning.

This assignment is optional and worth a maximum of 20 points added to your exam scores. There is no length or format requirement, other than the production of a well organized report.

Student 1

Learning new subject matter is a challenge that many people pursue, especially those who attend universities. Effectively learning is a key attribute an engineer must possess in order to be successful in the industrial setting. I signed up for Chemical Engineering at Auburn University because of my interests in math, chemistry, physics, and general problem solving. As a freshman, I thought my normal study habits from high school would carry me through college. However, my thoughts on how I learn the subject material have recently changed. My “personal journey” to become an effective learner has been adapted because of the many lectures and discussions that have taken place in CHEN 3600.

The Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning has changed the way I view and approach the entire education process. This Taxonomy holds that the steps involved in learning are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The freshman and sophomore classes did not break past the second tier of comprehension very often, and this is a problem I have noticed for introductory/preparatory engineering classes. For example, core classes like physics and chemistry did not require a tremendous amount of application. This course places a tremendous amount of focus on the application of the knowledge acquired by students. I have struggled at this task because the past courses I have taken, this was not needed. As a freshman, I would have liked to have been challenged more and given the chance to practice the application of my learning, rather than simply regurgitating knowledge back onto paper during a test. As a freshman, I would have also liked to have seen the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning in the first Fall semester, so that I could have been preparing my mind for such learning methodology.

The Curve of Forgetting is something I would have also liked to have been exposed to my freshman year. This Curve of Forgetting can help a student retain the knowledge longer, keeping them from studying last minute for every test. I have unknowingly been following this methodology to an extent since high school, but there is room for improvement. If I focus on studying my notes in a high-quality manner, in the methodology, I will retain more knowledge. I have attempted this methodology this semester by writing down everything I thought was important from that day’s lecture some time after class. I study that day’s notes a week later and then a month later. As a result, I find myself remembering the subject matter more easily. On a lighter note, I thought it was interesting how we retain knowledge in our sleep, and this is the reason why we have strange dreams. This class has taught me how to reduce the amount of information I forget by implementing my knowledge of the Curve of Forgetting. This knowledge would have been useful freshman year, so I would have been accustomed to it by now. Forming “good” habits early on would have put me in a better position for this course.

The Macro-Abilities and Micro-Skills of Engineering are interesting lists of information that have changed the way I think. By the end of my college career, I hope to have acquired all these abilities and skills. This course has helped me be able to evaluate certain data, like the Kiln firing data assignment. A micro-skill that I am attaining presently in this course is the ability to identify and apply appropriate models. Coming into this class, I was not a strong programmer, but now I feel comfortable because of the time and quality of effort I have put

forth in practicing VBA programming. To write these programs, one must try to apply a certain way of thinking in order to solve the issue. My understanding and application of VBA programming has been a success due to the quality hours outside of class I put into applying the many elements of programming we learn in CHEN 3600.

This course has helped me understand what is expected of an engineer working in an industrial setting through its strict rules and course expectations. I feel that my progress in becoming an engineer has been positive, because I have truly changed the way I study and think due to the various lectures and discussions that have taken place concerning Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, the Curve of Forgetting, and Macro-Abilities and Micro-Skills. I have learned to think through problems visually and logically, which helps produce stronger solutions to the task at hand. There is room for improvement on my “personal journey” to become an effective learner, but I have taken the discussions seriously and have attempted to implement them in my daily life. I believe that if I had been exposed to these methodologies of learning before this class, I would have been more prepared. As a department, I truly believe that it would benefit the students if this would happen.

Student 2

Until my freshman year of college, I believed I had an effective method of learning. When I entered my classes freshman year I quickly realized that the method I used in high school was not enough to know, understand, and apply the information that was lectured on in class. I made a change in my method early on and until this point I have been successful using the method.

This class has forced me to reevaluate the method of learning I have used for the past three years. My previous method failed me in certain aspects. For example, my previous method of learning did not account for the process of forgetting. Using my previous method I had knowledge of the material as per Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning as well as understanding of the material but, I was not necessarily able to apply my knowledge and because I did not try to apply my knowledge, I forgot a great deal of what I was taught. Thinking critically was another aspect of learning with which I had very little experience and therefore could not apply during assignments and exams. Thinking critically calls for one to first understand a problem and then break the problem down into manageable parts. After the problem has been broken down, one must tackle the parts in a systematic manner until all parts of the problem have been accomplished. Finally, the different parts must be merged together into a complete thought. My approach to problems involved little critical thinking. I began attempting to solve problems before I fully understood the premises of the problem and as a result I lost time trying to fix parts I worked incorrectly. As this semester has progressed, I have grown as a student and as a learner. I have modified my way of learning to become a more efficient and effective learner

I have become a more effective and efficient learner in that I now force myself to apply the knowledge I attain from lecture through practice so that I slow the forgetting process and retain more useful information. Through the use of proper techniques in critical thinking I have become a more proficient worker while being able to relay my thinking in a clearer manner. I no longer have to decipher my work when I look over it. My process of thinking has become more elaborate yet has simplified my work.

Though this class has, at times, seemed daunting, it has forced me to alter my methods of learning and as a result has made me a more effective learner. I realize there are still ways for me to improve my abilities and as I continue to practice more efficient methods of learning, I believe I will be ability to reach my full potential as a student and a professional later in life.

Student 3

The process of learning is approached differently by all individuals. For me, it has been an ever changing process.

Early in my education, learning was simply a matter of attending lectures and then regurgitating the information presented in class on examinations. However, upon entering Auburn, this method was no longer appropriate. I found that what I considered learning in high school was merely memorization.

To fully understand something, an individual should be able to completely explain the concept to another individual with no prior knowledge on the subject. Having a lack of experience in this matter, I struggled with my first chemical engineering courses. I did not struggle with my core classes due to exposure to the material in high school. However, my chemical engineering courses were completely new to me. The concept of reading and studying outside of class on a daily basis was unheard of.

Although I managed to successfully complete principles, transport I, and thermo I, I still felt the need to improve my study habits. The trend that I followed was typically to drop all other classes and focus only on the class that had an examination in a given week. This method quickly began failing due to the presence of multiple examinations in a given week. Also, I found that I did not know what I was working towards. I kept wondering why I was completing these random assignments and why they would matter when I got to the job world. Upon entering CHEN 3600, I found a new method to approach the learning process and some answers to these questions.

As Dr. Placek presented several times in class, an effective method of studying is to take 15 minutes after class each day and briefly summarize the major points from memory. Then, revisit the notes and fill in any blanks. After this process, review the notes 1 day after class, 1 week after class, and then 1 month after class. Using this gradual process will integrate knowledge into the mind gradually, and lead to effective learning. I have began to try this process slowly. However, it is hard to completely adopt a new method of doing things without some initial struggle. I find myself being able to sit down and reflect on the material covered in lecture, but I typically forget to go back and look at these reflections. If I continue to work towards effectively completing this process, I could become an effective learner.

Personally, I feel that if these techniques had been presented earlier in the curriculum and been reinforced as students progressed through the curriculum, many students would have mastered the learning process. By the time most students reach 3600, they have established a method of studying and tend to keep the methods they have established. However, as freshmen in Introduction to Engineering, most students have no idea how they can be successful in their chemical engineering courses. Presentation of study techniques, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and the Engineering Micro Skills and Macro Abilities would allow students to see what they are working towards and the best technique for achieving these goals.

Also, Dr. Placek presented several materials on what an engineer needs to work towards becoming. The Micro Skills and Macro Abilities handout was very beneficial for me because it allowed me to see how all my courses were slowly building me towards reaching that level. Additionally, I realized that although the exact problems presented in class or on examinations may not be directly applied in the workplace, the thinking strategy that those problems require is what will most prepare an individual for a job. The same situation is applicable for studying for examinations. Professors will never put exact problems on tests from homework assignments or examples. However, they will put problems that require applications of principles learned in class. Fully understanding a concept and then being able to apply it will prove that an individual has truly mastered a subject. Having these new ideas and concepts presented to me has greatly focused my studying habits and has allowed me to gain a new appreciation for learning as a process rather than just regurgitation. I still have many things to improve upon before I can consider myself an effective learner, but I am diligently working towards that goal.

Student 4

The tragic oil spill in the gulf has brought the standards of the Chemical Engineering once again into the eye of the public. Success under these standards is reserved for those who among other things, can demonstrate the skills needed to think critically about the universe and it’s processes.

The struggle to develop these skills is a personal journey, one that I have not completed. CHEN 3600 is a monumental step in our departments’ curriculum; this fact is obvious to those who have succeeded and failed before me. Their stories serve as a warning that those who do not realize their potential will fall by the wayside. This class has taught me more about myself and how to learn, than VBA. In truth, VBA is not difficult to use or hard to understand. The value of realizing my own shortcomings has given purpose to learning. Thinking critically about myself and the world has brought two distinctive inadequacies to light. The details of problems are often simple, yet I often over complicate them. In other cases, my mistakes brood from inefficiencies in problem solving.

Frequently when beginning a problem, whether in CHEN 3600 or another course, I start the same way. “Given, Find, Equations, Assumptions, Solutions” is the problem solving methodology drilled into all Auburn Chemical Engineering students, and for good reason. The method is fluid, however as a student, I am not. If the problem is straight forward, and the details surrounding the case are apparent to me, the solution flows as the method does. The problem comes, however, when there is a detail, usually a variable I can’t account for, that is introduced when planning my solution. When these roadblocks occur, it’s often very difficult to work around them. At home, doing homework, it’s easy to run into a roadblock, take a break to do work from another class, and then come back to the problem with fresh eyes. This isn’t possible on exams. While this is a common problem, it often plagues my mind when it’s most undesired. The driven by need method has introduced a new approach, one that I identify with. Using the DBN method I can solve problems methodically rather than laboriously.

The stepwise refinement method however, was not a new tool that I could use. I employed stepwise refinement in previous programming courses and succeeded where I have struggled this semester. The key to success with the stepwise refinement method is efficiency. To learn from mistakes and make corrections is a strong skill of mine. Where I lack is the ability to employ this method quickly. The problems in which I succeed are the problems tackled outside of the classroom on my own time. My desire is to strengthen my ability to quickly solve problems on time, whether it is in an exam or on the job. This class, especially the practice problems created by the students, has challenged me to practice my skills until I can not get it wrong instead of until I get it right.

Student 5

Upon entering the junior year as a Chemical Engineering major, the expectations for the student have significantly increased. So far in the curriculum, students have been expected to learn the information presented in class using whatever studying method they have always used. Many students do not seem to be aware of their method of learning or of its effectiveness at aiding in their studies. In the course, Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering (CHEN 3600), Dr. Placek encourages students to analyze their current learning method and to make any necessary improvements in order to become better students. CHEN 3600 has aided my development into a chemical engineer, and my journey to become a more effective learner.

In the past, I believed “applying” knowledge had something to do with memorizing some amount of information and then answering a question about this information on a test. In CHEN 3600, Dr. Placek discussed different levels of thinking in the beginning of the semester. As shown in Fig. 1, the six different levels of thinking in decreasing order are

Evaluation, Synthesis, Analysis, Application, Comprehension, and Knowledge. When I was “applying” knowledge in previous courses, I was only showing comprehension of the subject and not an application of it. Application occurs when knowledge is used in a new situation. CHEN 3600 requires it students to be able to apply the use of Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to succeed further in the curriculum.

Students in CHEN 3600 often feel hard-pressed in formatting and the methods of their work. Many complain we are expected

to be “perfect”. Though it is quite stressing, practice of this detailed formatting and methodology is a necessary preparation for the future. When working in an industrial setting, a chemical engineer is expected to be “perfect”. For example, slacking on a program, which controls a machine’s functioning, can cause damage to the machine or the people around it. This is not at all attractive to the business owning the machine, nor beneficial to the engineer’s reputation and career. CHEN 3600 emphasizes the importance of details to an engineer.

The engineering courses I have taken aided in my understanding and application of a systematic approach and critical thinking in problem solving. CHEN 3600 has further added to my understanding and application. Dr. Placek has provided an excellent website containing numerous resources for his CHEN 3600 students. Resources for a systematic approach and critical thinking can be found at the top of his site (see reference). Along with knowing these basics to solving problems, CHEN 3600 and my other current courses require students to recall knowledge from previous courses. During one of the first days of

class, Dr. Placek asked for the definition of Newton’s Law of Viscosity. While he was writing the equation for the class to see, I recognized the equation and knew its use; however, I had forgotten its name. In an industrial setting, books and other resources may not always be conveniently available. Therefore, it is important for an engineer to be capable of recalling learned information. In order to keep up with all the concepts learned, I am composing a constantly growing personal encyclopedia. Perhaps when finished with my collection of properly referenced documents, there may be possible profits to make.

Relative to previous computer science courses, CHEN 3600 has better opened my view to the computer world. After learning the basics to MATLAB, I did not find it applicable for my everyday use. In comparison, VBA in Microsoft Excel has been very useful. Currently, I use it for organizing my personal encyclopedia among other numerous files and perform calculations involved in lab work and my own personal projects. When compared to the average person of my generation, I feel very educated on applications of the computer. However, this is not enough to satisfy my interests, and I intend to pursue further study of the computer sciences.

CHEN 3600 has aided me in better understanding what an engineer is. Recently during a class lecture, Dr. Placek gave a definition of an engineer as, “a scientist with economic interests.” In the engineering course, students are taught the concepts necessary to be a scientist. However, the courses do not thoroughly teach concepts pertaining to economic interests. A lack of understanding these concepts is my weakness as a developing engineer. In the future, I intend to pursue studies in this area.

Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering has added to my development as a chemical engineer and allowed me to alter my current study methods. Modifying my study methods and spending more time to review previous concepts has benefitted me. Comparing my first and second tests in my currents courses proves the effectiveness of these changes.

Student 6

Because Computer-aided Chemical Engineering (CHEN 3600) has introduced structured learning styles and emphasized their utility for a student’s development of learning skills and styles, I have become much more aware of what is expected from me. The hierarchal approach to learning is something that I have not been introduced to before. Before being introduced to it, I had always assumed that learning consisted of only the mere collection of knowledge ( I was not even conscious of the fact that the volumes of information that I was amassing was sampling decaying in my memory and eventually subsiding to the forces of forgetfulness).

After having been introduced to the concepts related to Bloom’s Taxonomy and the associated curve of forgetting, I feel much more capable of learning. Being aware is the first step required to be able to move up Bloom’s triangle to the higher levels of learning such as application and analysis, but further implementation is necessary in order for me to further build up my learning abilities and to sustain them. Specifically to CHEN 3600 I find myself spending much time in the lab writing macros and functions for different problems that my peers and I can create. Through doing this I have found myself more capable of performing problems application (i.e. problems in which I have not been explicitly exposed to the material in question before). By doing problems outside of class I become more aware of different topics and nuances that we did not cover explicitly in class. Generally, I find this to be true in every class I take. The more time I spend studying outside of class, the better I do. There is however, one qualifier. The time that I register as “studying time” is more specifically noted as “productive studying time.” If the time spend studying is not spent wisely, then I would have been just as productive had I been watching television or sleeping.

My typical weekday consists of class, extracurricular activities and study time. I attempt to optimize my studying through the adjustment of several variables, venue, agenda, presence of computer/internet, presence of music and method of studying. The success of my studying depends on how well I balance these variables against one another.

My venue of choice for studying is typically the library, but it has also commonly been Ross hall, the Uthlaut computer lab, Wilmore laboratory, my apartment, and the student center. I find that I generally do my most productive work in the library, however after I have been studying a lot I sometimes get “burnt out” on the library and require another place to work because studying in the same locale results in excessive familiarity with the surroundings and thus a less productive studying period. The appeal of the library for studying is its unfamiliarity. Because it is unfamiliar, it is uncomfortable. Because it is uncomfortable, it is not inviting to sleep or any other such comforts that hinder studying. Because of its compartmentalized design, it is very easy to locate one’s self in a location where one will not likely come into contact with anyone or at least anyone that one is familiar with. However, during exam periods and odd times throughout the semester sometimes the library becomes a hub of campus social activity purely because of the sheer volume of people there. Because of this, it becomes necessary to relocate to one of my other designated study locations. My apartment is typically the last place I turn to because it

possesses the greatest potential for distraction. I select it sometimes however because of the convenience of the proximity of food and the decreased transportation time that would distract from studying. Wilmore laboratory is a location of study equally as inviting as the library. It is uncomfortable and a place of little action. This makes it a good place to study. However, if I find myself sleepy, then it is not as effective a study place because I find myself falling asleep there because the general lack of activity is inviting of peace. Ross hall is similar to Wilmore except it has slightly more activity. Usually when I find myself studying in Ross I find myself in the atrium. This is a good study locale with the exception of foot traffic that is constantly shuffling in and out of the room causing constant distractions.

If I require a computer or am studying for CHEN 3600 I tend towards the Uthlaut computer lab because of the psychological “context effect” and the availability of computers. The context effect relays that a person performs better on examinations if they prepare in the room of said examinations. That coupled with the necessity of computers for practice with VBA and excel makes the computer lab an inviting study location. Otherwise, I seldom go there.

In regards to agenda I often find my learning most effective if I have a specific plan for my daily studies. This plan is most effective if it does not consist of general tasks such as “study transport,” but instead consists of more concrete, work-explicit tasks such as “read and take detailed notes of organic ch 19.” Through the implementation of these concrete entries on my agenda I find myself more productive. Coupled with the importance of having a good agenda is the importance of not over-planning. If one over-plans then they waste valuable time that could be used for studying, planning when they should study. Having a good agenda is also necessary for balancing extracurricular activities with study activities. Without a good plan, no one can expect to fulfill their potential in any course. If one cannot fulfill his/her potential in a course then they certainly cannot expect to fulfill their learning potential.

The presence of a computer is another simple but important variable that can prove invaluable in the utilization of study time. My hard and fast rule is that unless a computer is required for a specific homework assignment then its presence should be forbidden from the studying environment. This is why I generally avoid the Uthlaut computer lab and my apartment when studying. If a computer is required for homework completion then it generally requires the use of the internet so disabling internet access is not an option. The biggest factor here is the will power of the student in resisting the urge to browse the internet to check Facebook or to check e-mail. If these urges can be overcome, then a computer can be used effectively. It is usually better however to just avoid computer usage as much as possible.

Related to the presence of a computer in one’s studying environment is the presence of music. When studying, I generally listen to music. The exceptions to this are when I am working problems when studying for an exam or taking notes from the book. I avoid music when working problems in preparation for an exam because I do not want the absence of music to hurt me during an exam. If I practice with music then I should take an exam with

music to simulate my studying environment. This is not possible however, so, as stated, I generally avoid music around exam time. Another time when I abstain from music is when I am having trouble focusing. The presence of music can then serve as a great distraction. The one exception to this is when I am tired. When I am tired I generally have trouble focusing, cannot afford to take a nap, and require the presence of music to help myself stay awake.

The last and most important variable that determines the success of my studying is how I use my time studying. More specifically I mean the method that I use to study. If material is fresh then I often spend time taking notes out of the book, trying to glean as much information as I can. Without a sound knowledge of the material, an individual cannot move up Bloom’s triangle. Once I have acquired enough of an understanding from my note-taking I generally review my in-class notes. After having done this depending on the class I either clarify important concepts or work problems. For the more abstract classes conceptually (e.g. Phase and Reaction Equilibria) I tend to do the former, and for the more mathematically rigorous classes (e.g. Heat and Mass Transfer) I tend to do the latter. For CHEN 3600 I tend to review that concepts and then move on to coding. If I find myself coding without thorough application of thought to a problem then my progress grinds to a halt as I find myself altering and testing code without any discernable plan in mind. This often leads to much frustration and few results. This is how I approached programming in MATLAB and in the beginning of this class. However, over the course of the semester my approach has evolved significantly. I now think out every programming problem in my head before typing and, if necessary, create a visual aide on paper.

In summation, the practice that I find yields the best results is alternating between the library and Wilmore, using a computer only when necessary, planning concrete tasks, avoiding music, and understanding which methods of material absorption and learning work best for you as an individual. If a person understands best how they learn then they are far more likely to experience success and sustained learning.

Student 7

From the beginning of my learning journey, memorizing facts has been simple and easy. I have always thought I was good at it and it took little effort. As this journey progressed past the point of knowing facts, the subsequent understanding of them became necessary. For example, in preschool one learns the alphabet and the sounds that correspond with each letter. However, the simple knowledge of the alphabet does not mean one can read. In kindergarten one then learns to put letters together to get different sounds, then words, then sentences.

In middle school knowledge was a major focus. Math classes taught algebra and geometry. These classes tended to involve the memorization of facts and techniques to solve problems. In high school these facts were extended to understanding acquired knowledge. At this point learning was still simple and easy to me.

After coming to Auburn courses began to expect more than this type of learning I had practiced my whole life. Courses like Engineering Physics began to apply algebra and then calculus in a problem solving atmosphere. This was a bit of a shock in the first semester of my freshman year. It took a good amount of practice and review of examples to understand how to best analyze and solve questions. Problems no longer asked one to find things in a one step fashion. One now had to identify the direction a problem needed to go without immediate direction or prompt. Application was also introduced in other courses. Courses like Organic Chemistry required not only recall of facts as well as understating the meaning of the facts but also applied them to reaction mechanisms. This learning process was slower and more arduous than the first two which had come so naturally.

Computer Aided Chemical Engineering (CHEN3600) has by far had the largest emphasis on application of any course I have taken at Auburn University. It requires recall of information from nearly all the courses prerequisites, and it demands that the student understands it. The requirement for initial and immediate recall of this information was a shock at first. It has served as a strong reminder that what has been learned to this point is still relevant to my technical knowledge of chemical engineering.

I feel I am an effective learner. I have always found knowledge and understanding an easy step in the learning process. Application and some analysis are more complicated forms of learning. These require more personal work and practice. These are more self-learned from individual and partner work rather than being something that can be taught in a lecture. Application has been something I have to continue working at in many subjects. I have to learn to apply knowledge by applying to many different and new situations over and over again. My suggestion to the Department of Chemical Engineering would be to keep presenting students with challenging and applicable problems that the chemical engineer would encounter in industry. These problems would not only prepare us for vaguely similar situations but also teach us to teach ourselves how to continue learning and analyzing the world around us.

Student 8

It is evident how much personal improvement and learning has occurred when I remember back to freshman year and my first Chemical Engineering class. I vividly remember spending hours on end studying and doing homework. I remember going into exams feeling unprepared even with all the time I put into learning the material. Very little knowledge and application was retained because of bad study habits and no method to combat the “forgetting curve.”

During Thermodynamics II, I was introduced to a very strong method of material retention. Professor Virginia Davis challenged the class to simply go home and re-write all of the day’s notes before the next class section. I began using this method immediately and was truly shocked to have improved from my previous test by two letter grades. I now employ this technique along with several others for all of my studies.

I recently found myself again struggling. Even though I thoroughly understood the concepts introduced in Computer Aided, I was unable to find the solution in the allotted time. This is ultimately a critical thinking and problem solving issue. I find myself stuck in transition between the application and analysis level as shown by Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking. I ultimately strive to reach the top and be the best Engineer I am capable of being. Dedication and persistence are the only things that will get me there.

Student 9

Before taking this class, I believed that I was an adequate learner. However, when compared to the criteria put forward in this class, I was only operating at the understanding level of learning. I had never seen the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning before this class and had never thought of learning as anything beyond memorizing material. While this methodology has not completely revolutionized my learning process, I have taken a few things from it that have greatly improved my studying methods.

One definite positive impact this class has had on my learning is in retention. Before this class I would start studying for a test 2 to 3 days before and just cram and memorize the material. Since taking this class, I have started to study at least a little every day. This has greatly reduced the amount of material I forget after the test. It also is a more effective means of studying as it does not cause nearly as much stress as waiting until a few days before the test.

This class has also changed the material I study. Before, I would only study the notes and homework problems hoping that the test questions would be of a similar type. However, throughout taking this class, I have begun to create my own variations of problems in order to get more experience working problems of various types. Creating problems and modifying given problems has really helped me in better understanding the concepts behind the material. The wider variety of problems also helps by forcing me to solve problems that aren’t just the examples with different numbers.

Before taking this class, my critical thinking skills were one of my weakest areas. This lack of skill was due to the fact that those skills were never stressed in any of my previous classes. The experience I have gained by working the problems in this class has helped me in working these types of problems.

The study habits and view of learning I have gained from this class have definitely helped me in other classes. I also believe that, as a result of this class, my problem solving and critical skills have increased. Overall, this class has made my study habits better, which has helped my performance in other classes.

Student 10

My personal journey to become an effective learner has not been one without challenges. As with every new subject matter, the learning process is a different one than before. Each new course presents new obstacles to overcome, and therefore requires an adjustment in the way a student learns. In other words, we must be able to ‘learn to learn’ in each new topic we are subjected to.

This course, in particular, has taught me that learning involves more than just understanding the material presented. You must also be able to apply what you know in order to become an effective engineer. We have also been introduced to the Curve of Forgetting, which is an interesting concept that has proved to be true in my experience throughout my education. Therefore, I have begun to review my class notes every day as well as review past concepts every week in order to slow the curve of forgetting. As I continue in the engineering curriculum, I find that it is increasingly important to carry everything I have learned in previous courses to the next courses, so as to maximize my understanding. The method of learning to learn has been a particular obstacle for me in this course. It has been a challenge to apply what I know in high pressure situations, such as exams. I have identified the problem I am experiencing, and am adjusting my learning and study habits in order to better succeed in my current courses and future courses. I now realize, after many discussions on this matter, that I cannot be a successful engineer without being able to apply what I know. Therefore, I am exercising myself on time management skills as well as exposing myself to different types of problems so as to better prepare for high pressure situations and decrease the stress that I experience. In the engineering curriculum, the concept of learning is so much more than just memorizing the material. It is being able to use my critical thinking skills, and to analyze and solve problems I have never before encountered. It is also about challenging myself to become a better student, a better learner and, in effect, a better engineer in the future.

Student 11

There are many different styles of learning that are suitable to the studying of specific topics. The analysis and problem solving techniques required to become an effective engineer are often specific to this field. These techniques have been evolving for myself as I’ve been progressing through the Chemical Engineering program.

I believe my engineering learning skills started to develop at an early age from instruction from my father who graduated from the department in 1982. My father taught me a variety of skills such as car mechanics, woodworking, and metalworking. When teaching me these principles, a diagram was always initially drawn to represent the problem and subsequent possible solutions. These diagrams were useful in visualizing problems such as wood strength in the sidewalls of a gunstock, or the removal of an alternator in a tight engine bay. In my engineering courses these diagramming skills were reinforced and extremely useful in implementing a solution.

Before entering CHEN 3600 my learning skills seemed adequate enough to learn and solve textbook problems covered in previous courses in this program. This course however became a challenge due to the several different ways to solve open-ended problems that a textbook could not give guidance to. Very quickly it became apparent to me that a substantial amount of practice and understanding of a problem was necessary to become efficient in solving these new types of problems. Several programming problems given in this course seemed initially simple, but often proved challenging, illustrating my inadequacies in my learning style. I have since incorporated more practice in my learning style to further develop my critical thinking skills.

When the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning topic was discussed in class it was an eye-opener for me. It made me understand that I often didn’t possess all the required levels of understanding and implementation skills needed to solve certain problems. I have since begun to try to spend more time on the simpler problems given so as not to just understand a problem, but to be able to implement what I know in similar situations. I believe this awareness of this learning skill is one of the most important things I have discovered in this course and will be particularly beneficial in future courses and in industry.

Like many of my fellow classmates at Auburn, class material is often learned and stored long enough to implement it on tests, only to be forgotten later. I now try to review my material days and weeks after initial exposure to decrease what I forget. What made this so important to me were examples given in class of previous 3000 exam questions that I had previous knowledge from, but have long since lost my understanding of how to implement a solution for the problem.

I have not struggled as hard in any other course as I have in CHEN 3600. Several of my classmates have expressed similar thoughts. However, this has proved to be a very positive experience for me in that I have not only developed new skills in Excel and VBA programming, but also more importantly, new learning skills. I feel that my studying skills have been strengthened and also have become more disciplined. I am still challenged by

certain problems and I will continue to develop my critical thinking skills through practice and exposure.

Student 12

When I first entered Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, as well as the Department of Chemical Engineering, I felt that I had always solved problems just to get an answer. This class, however, has taught me to better understand the process of “how” I got the answer and find value in it. I feel that we can often times take a step back from a problem and see how it is truly being solved. This may, in turn, allow us to better execute the problem to arrive at the best answer.

I feel that this class has taught me how to do that on some levels. I have become a better and more effective learner through this class, but I’m not sure if I’m learning the material I need to. I don’t feel that the problems I solve in this class will ever be presented to me in an industrial setting. While they are a good way to teach students how Excel and VBA work, they are not the problems we will encounter as chemical engineers.

This is not to say, however, that I have not become a more effective learner, because I have. I can now look at a problem, think through the best method to solve it, and then execute it. This class has taught me that. I just do not feel that these problems are the best examples of what we will face as graduates from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Auburn University. Having said this, the problems presented in this class have helped me to become a better learner, a better problem solver, a better student, and ultimately a better engineer.

Student 13

My journey began from day one of school. I have always enjoyed learning and have always applied myself to the fullest extent. As I have gone through my school years, I have changed my methods of learning and refined my study habits. I was privileged enough to receive an excellent foundation during my high school years.

Upon entering college, I was fortunate enough to have the ability to study effectively and the motivation to do work on my own. When I started with my engineering classes, I had to quickly realize that these new concepts were not going to be understood as quickly. I had to spend more time on homework and studying. The testing methods were different as well. This is where Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking is helpful. I now know that I was moving away from simply knowledge to applications of my knowledge. I am slow to learn the concepts – I have realized this since the beginning of Spring 2009. I have been dealing with this draw-back, but it just makes me work harder so that I can help raise myself to the level of a great engineer. I realize that I will have to put forth much effort to prepare for the 3000 level assessment as it is mostly conceptual. I know that I can do it; I must remain confident in my ability.

I had my first internship this past summer with a chemical company. I had a wonderful experience and was truly reassured that this field is a great fit for me. It has made me even more determined to succeed in all my endeavors and be able to work in this industry. This internship showed me how my engineering skills developed in the academia field will be used in industry. Working this summer gave me a new perspective on how I can continue my learning and apply the knowledge in everyday concepts.

This class has forced me to think more on an engineering level and to expect the unexpected. Also, this class has posed more open-ended questions then we usually have. It’s much more difficult to try and solve a problem when given no direction, but this is what the real-world is like. One of the most helpful things I have learned from Computer-Aided Engineering is Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking. It shows me where I stand in my academic career – I am beyond just knowledge, but rather need to apply the skills that I have acquired. It is essential to be aware of this so that I can help myself farther. It forced me to go back to the basics of core math and science classes to re-familiarize myself with basic skills. I think it is really important to keep up with these basic skills, no matter how simple they may seem. I find myself constantly reviewing my work and practicing new concepts. Additionally, this class has forced me to be more aware of the small things, such as naming documents properly. I understand the necessity for keeping an organized system and that it is crucial for everyone to follow proper format. I find myself triple-checking my work to make sure it is done correctly. This is how all of my work should be done on a daily basis, whether it is in my coursework or industry. I honestly have done nothing but school work this semester, but I realize that all of my hard work will one day payoff. I will be thrilled when I can start giving back to the community and using my talents to help the world around me. This class has always had extra links posted to the schedule. I have enjoyed reaching these practical stories because it shows how broad the topic of engineering truly is. I appreciate that this class tries to demonstrate the multitude of ways we can apply our

knowledge. I have enjoyed learning more in-depth about the excel functions. I feel that this section of the course is extremely useful in industry and even daily life. Using the spreadsheets makes generating data much quicker. Additionally, being able to create charts and graphs allows for more professional presentations of data. I have struggled greatly with the VBA programming portion. With my struggles, however, it has only forced me to work harder to learn the applications. I am determined to be successful in this class so that I can apply my knowledge in further coursework. I have also been humbled in asking for assistance through this class. It has made me realize that is okay not to understand everything from the very beginning. Everyone has struggles and computers are tough for me. I just try to remind myself that I can do this; and I just need to practice, practice, practice. One other good thing about this class has been the variety of homework assignments. In other classes, I feel like we do the same types of problems over and over again. In Computer-Aided, all of our assignments have been drastically different which demonstrates how your brain has to think in many different ways. You are applying the same set of skills each time but need to adjust the applications based on the problem statement and the conditions.

I feel that I still have much more to learn and to do to prepare myself for graduation. I need to continue learning concepts and refining my skills. It sometimes takes me a long time to figure out solutions to problems; I think that the more I practice, the more efficient I will become. I know that I attend each class with a specific purpose and try to always walk away with some new piece of knowledge each day. I am determined to be an engineer who is an asset to the world. I know that I will receive the best education possible by being a part of the Chemical Engineering Department at Auburn; now it is up to me to push through the curriculum and use the knowledge that has been provided to me!

Student 14

Prior to taking CHEN 3600 I had never heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning, the Curve of Forgetting, or Macro Abilities and Micro Skills. Discussions on these topics would have been very useful earlier in my college career and even in high school. I’ve realized that it is very important to leaning to develop good study skills and habits early on in life, and all of these topics help one to learn good techniques and develop good habits. These study habits would have been very useful in earlier classes. By this time in my college life it is very hard to break the bad study habits I’ve developed. In high school I became accustomed to cramming a night, maybe even two nights, before a test and making an A or, on a bad day, a B. This study technique even worked in my first few college classes. These classes included Chemistry 1, Calculus and Music Appreciation. All of which can in no way be compared to Chemical Engineering classes.

When I started to get into my major classes, I soon came to the terrifying realization that this method of “studying” did not work. Knowing about Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Curve of Forgetting would have greatly helped me when I first got into my engineering classes. Learning about Bloom’s Taxonomy in this course has given me an entirely new outlook on learning. I feel as of right now I have made progress in my leaning style through the semester but still need to make much more. As of right now, I am at the understanding level, however, I need to be at the level of application. I feel that I can accomplish this goal by the end of the semester.

In order to reach the level of learning that I should be at I plan on working harder on some of the things I’ve already started working on. I read over my class notes from the previous week every day in an attempt to delay forgetting previous material. This helps; however, I know that I could be doing more. I feel that my critical thinking skills have progressed over the course of the semester but are still not quite at the level they need to be at. I plan on continuing my progress by working more VBA and Excel problems every day. I did much worse on the second test than the first; therefore, I’m not doing all that I can to further my learning.

I feel that I’ve gained an understanding of how to program in VBA, but I have not been able to apply this understanding. I can look at lines of code and know what certain commands and functions accomplish. I can also work most of the example problems given. In order to work these problems, however, I must have complete silence and a pencil and paper in order to work the logic of the problem out first. Then I go into VBA and can work through the programming of the problem. This obviously takes too much time. Going into the second exam I felt like I could do really well on it. When I received the exam, however, I froze. I knew I had five problems to work, so instead of trying to first work each problem out on paper I tried to stumble through the programming in VBA. This was a bad attempt at trying to receive as much “partial credit” for each problem as possible. This attempt to make a passing grade failed.

Before the third exam and the final I plan on working much harder in order to greatly improve my test scores. I will take the Curve of Forgetting and Bloom’s Taxonomy into

account during my preparation for these exams. Learning about these topics and my general experience in Chemical Engineering classes has shown me that succeeding in Chemical Engineering does not require what most students think of as studying. Instead it requires constant preparation. This preparation should help to move one through the hierarchy that is Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning. This preparation should range from daily preparation for lecture, which requires the retention of knowledge given in previous class notes, to more application oriented preparation such as working and further manipulating problems. This class has shown me that through constant preparation instead of studying I can succeed in Chemical Engineering.

Student 15

My “personal journey” to become an effective learner has been a continuous lifetime experience. With every action comes a consequence, a consequence that acts as a learning opportunity. The ability to learn is an opportunity that many are presented with. It is up to the individual to decide whether or not they will put the time and effort into learning the subject material.

A few tools utilized in class this year which relate to being an effective learner are Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, the Forgetting Curve, and Macro Abilities and Micro Skills. One diagram which has been referred to numerous times to aid in our understanding of what makes up learning and to help distinguish between the different levels of learning is Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning. This figure has been helpful to me in the respect that I realized that a majority of my learning occurred solely in the bottom portion labeled “Knowledge.” After revisiting this diagram many times, I have altered my study habits to shift my learning habits up at least two regions to the area labeled “Application.” With learning levels in this area, one not only better understands and comprehends the material, but he or she can also apply what they have learned to new situations in which they have not been introduced to before. It is this ability which will be desired in an industrial setting.

Another document that has been referred to multiple times this semester is a list of abilities and skills that engineers need to possess to aid in problem solving. The first half, labeled Engineering Macro-Abilities, is extremely important because it is these capabilities that an engineer must hold to simply begin working on a problem and to work through the problem in a logical manner. The second half of the document, Engineering Micro-Skills, is more concentrated on capabilities needed by an engineer to be able to solve problems and analyze the results which have been reached. Without these abilities and skills, the engineer will have trouble solving problems and presenting the solutions found in effective ways and therefore, they will not be desired candidates for the job. When solving more complex problems, I have used this list as a checklist of things to consider when working through the procedure to arrive at my conclusions.

The Forgetting Curve was another device used in class to help illustrate the rate at which new information is forgotten and how this varies if material is reviewed. One simple way to greatly reduce the amount of material forgotten is to review each page of notes for five minutes about one week after taking the notes. The main idea behind the Forgetting Curve is that repeated exposure to the notes will greatly improve the amount of material that is retained. From personal experience, I have found that by looking over notes one time about a week after lecture helps me significantly in retaining the information.

One technique discussed which allows one to organize his or her thoughts before beginning a project is the Nassi-Shneiderman Diagrams. If one is presented with a large and overwhelming project, a good place to start would be to construct a Nassi-Shneiderman Diagram. These diagrams help the individual to get thoughts down on paper and allow them to actually see what steps will be taken to arrive at the final solution. Once the

diagram is complete, the project can be started and the person will always have an idea on where to go next regarding the process of solving the problem. I have used similar techniques in many situations to initially brainstorm ideas for the task at hand and furthermore, complete a list of steps to run through to arrive at the sought after solution.

All of the previously stated mechanisms have been helpful in further advancing my “personal journey” to become an effective learner. My progress towards becoming a more effective learner and the many Excel and VBA skills which I have gained in the class will be very useful in an industrial setting. One capability that I now have is that I am able to organize data efficiently so that it can be easily interpreted and trends can be spotted quickly and effortlessly. With these skills and others learned in the class, I will be able to create programs to model the process which is being focused on. With the programs, many different aspects of a project can be changed and effects of making these changes can be seen very quickly without having to redo the many tedious calculations. The numerous topics covered this year have greatly contributed to my “personal journey” in becoming an effective learner and have enhanced my ability to work in industry.

Student 16

In order to accurately reveal my learning Experience, I must first inform you of some background history of where I came from before coming to Auburn. Before coming to Auburn University I went to a private Christian school, where I attended K4 – 12th grades. During my high school years I always made the A honor role and when the time came I was announced the Valedictorian of the 2008 graduating class. There were times that high school challenged me, but for the most part it was not hard for me. I did have to study some, but looking back now I did not study much, so obtaining those A’s came easy to me. The school was a good school, it had teachers who not only cared about my education but also cared about my spiritual well being and to that I am very grateful to have had them in my life, but the education and learning aspect did not prepare me for Auburn. I do not feel that I was ever taught how to properly study or even how to think critically, it was more or less could I memorize the material to make an A on the test, which I did, so I thought I had decent study skills. No teacher ever gave us something on the test that we had not already previously seen before, nor got us to so called “Think outside the box”. Since I came from this type of high school I feel that I was not prepared for the Auburn University College of Chemical Engineering.

Once at Auburn I learned of few more study habits and adopted them into my life, but they were nothing more than realizing that I could not wait till the night before to study for a test but instead must prepare in advance, but even then did not realize it was a daily activity that I needed to be doing. Even still I did excellent my freshman year and made the dean’s list, so that confirmed to me that I was on the right track and my study habits were fine. As each semester progressed I continued to do okay, but I did start to receive some Bs in my first Chemical Engineering classes. At this point in the ChemE program no one had introduced the Blooms triangle or had a lecture on how our attitude played a very important role with our success here at Auburn. Dr. Duke did discuss how we should study in our Into to ChemE class, but at that time I didn’t really take him serious or believe that I couldn’t do just fine with the way I had been studying. Since completed two years of the ChemE program I do feel that the issue of learning has been brought up, but not clearly shown what learning entails.

Since I have been in this class (CHEN 3600) I have had a rude awakening to how I have been treating all of my classes. I have now learned what exactly the Bloom’s triangle is and which levels I need to be at on the triangle. I did not know the difference between knowledge and understanding. I thought that Knowledge was really all there was to it, but after having been in this class almost an entire semester I’ve realized that knowledge is nowhere near all there is to it. Knowledge is merely the base from which we are to build on to become a successful engineer. In one of the documents Dr. Placek ask us to read entitled The Learning Process it states that “Learning is not just a change in behavior; it is a change in the way a student thinks, understand, or feels.” Reading that and also having Dr. Placek elaborate on such concepts as these seemed foreign to me. I never realized that your attitude had a big role in my learning experience. That has been the most eye-opening thing for me this semester, and I have taken it to heart and I’m trying to change my view of

learning and the whole learning process. Since I have never really been introduced to this concept it is going to take time for me to make this change in my life.

Time is the issue and I feel that this change does not happen overnight, and thus I wish to convey to you the importance of trying to implement this learning process into the lower level ChemE classes. My hope is that every teacher would take the time to elaborate on the importance that we have the right mind set, introduce us to the Bloom’s triangle, and explain each level and where we need to be. Why I feel that this is so important is because I wish I would have had this kind of eye opening experience my first or second semester here and not my junior year because we as students would be more prepared for not only higher level ChemE classes, but also the assessment exams and all of our other classes outside of ChemE classes. I’m glad to have had the eye opening experience now then not at all, but it will take time for me to completely change and rethink how I learn because my process of learning and moving forward has worked my whole high school career and most of my college career until now. I wish that my younger classmates in ChemE could be exposed to what I’ve been exposed to while in this class, but be exposed to it in all of their ChemE classes so that they don’t have to a rude awakening but rather have just had the opportunity to change their process at the beginning. When they would have reached this class they would already know and be very successful in this class and in all of their other classes. It is much easier to change at the beginning then to have to have a rude awakening and try to change in the middle of their junior year. So my overall goal of telling you my story is to encourage the faculty to unite together on this issue so that future ChemE will not have to have a rude awakening when they reach this class, but rather to have had been exposed to this learning process and been able to take it to heart their first year and adopt it into their lifestyle.

Student 17

Life’s day-to-day trials are constant challenges that heed only to the authority of education. It is through learning, effective learning, that we strengthen the value of our education.

With over three years of enrollment here at Auburn University it has been my observation that learning is personal. The amount of information that I retain for future use is solely up to me. As an entering freshman I expected the process of learning to be the same as that of which I had always known. I assumed it was the professor’s duty to teach me what I needed to know, and it was my duty to prove my knowledge by simply regurgitating the concepts on the exams. It is because of this misconception that I have struggled as a student in chemical engineering. It was not until Dr. Placek introduced the idea of Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking that I realized that there is a way to learn. Learning is not studying and regurgitating. It is and requires so much more.

In an effort to take my education into my own hands, I have begun to change the way I approach my role as a student. I am trying to study in ways that allow me to go more in-depth, and I am especially applying these tactics to the Computer-Aided Engineering course (CHEN 3600). Before starting an assignment I try to understand why the professor assigned it and what I’m supposed to take away from it. After understanding the purpose, I then try and plan a process for which I will solve the problem at hand. This process is not always written out, but I try to at least keep a mental note of the path I plan to take. After attending class, I have started to make it my duty to go back through the notes and clarify areas that I did not fully understand as well as sharpen up on the areas that I felt comfortable with. I’m taking my new venture of learning to learn one day at a time, and I am gradually adding new and better study habits to my routine. This is a new venture for me. It is one in which requires a lot of time and effort. Though I am not always successful in my endeavors, they are definitely a step in the right direction.

After I have successfully taught myself to learn I believe I will gain more from my classes, and the work that I submit will be of better quality. Until then, I will continue to work at understanding the material so that I can better apply it not only to exams but also in life.

Student 18

When examining my “personal journey,” it would be most effective to break my development into 3 different areas. The 3 segments that I will explore are pre-college, freshman/sophomore year, and this semester. These different categories represent the greatest development in my progress towards becoming an effective learner, and thus leading to my development as an engineer. While the most detail will go into describing this semester, and my progress, it can only be fully understood when examining my journey from its start.

Before coming to college my abilities as a learner were very under developed, I refused to put forth the effort to become a well adjusted learner, being satisfied with being able to do well without attempting to try. This caused a horrible habit to develop, one that has taken a long time to correct, and one that I am sure I will have to continue to struggle against in the future.

Once I got into college I started to see how destructive the habit I had developed. Classes became harder, and yet I still struggled in learning to develop a proper learning technique. I tried altering my note taking skills, and I tried altering my study habits, which led to my first all nighter. All these changes made a bit of a difference, allowing me to pass the classes, but the curve of forgetting was still showing that I was unable to take the knowledge and convert it to long term memory. I was also not developing the critical thinking skills necessary for a career as a chemical engineer.

This semester has been the most radical change of all. After various lectures given in CHEN 3600, and chances to really sit and evaluate my learning ability and how to optimize my position in the curve of forgetting. I began to realize how to develop critical thinking skills, and began to develop macro abilities and micro skills. As opposed to mindlessly trying to memorize equations and procedures I began to spend my time just playing with it. I would sit for an hour and just explore what I wanted to learn, not trying to force it into my mind but to allow myself a chance to play with ideas and develop my own procedures for progress. In excel I began to write random macros for everyday life, other times I would attempt to write programs to organize my mother’s database for work, all the while learning and growing in my comfort level and developing a way to critically think in problems that I have never tackled before.My study habits for tests also changed. I started earlier, and I no longer pulled all nighters. I learned in class from a lecture that sleep is when short term becomes long term, so I put it to the test, and it worked beautifully. Gradually I began trying more and more techniques discussed in class and began to see they were not only helping me learn, but helping me to think like an engineer.

Before college, and for the most part, my freshman and sophomore year I spent all my time at the bottom of Bloom’s triangle, content to progress no further. This semester in CHEN 3600 especially, I have had chances to even reach as far as evaluation. Writing programs for my partner and he writing ones for me, then we both would evaluate the others work.

The chance to move along the triangle like this has given me the confidence and ability to progress in this class.

Though I have learned so much this semester I also realize that there is lots of room for improvement. Yet once in my life that challenge would have caused me to turn away, now it is something I am intent on facing head on, and am excited at my chance to use the abilities that I have developed this semester.

Student 19

My personal journey to become an effective learner began when I was born. Like most people, my parents were largely responsible for my learning up to the age of around twelve. My mother pushed me in school, making me do my homework before I could go and play outside, quizzing me with spelling tests while she made dinner, and helping me complete big projects by giving me ideas and advice. Making A’s was a requirement in my household, not an option, mostly because my parents knew that is what I was capable of making. After years of learning that homework comes first, the idea became engrained in my thinking; therefore after the point where I was responsible for my learning more than my parents were responsible I still put school and learning first. I continued to make A’s all throughout middle school, junior high, and high school. School was not that much of a challenge and I often gained knowledge outside of school through extracurricular activities. Learning came easily, naturally, throughout most of my life. It was not until I came to Auburn University that I feel I was really challenged in a class or curricula.

At Auburn my effectiveness of learning began to really take shape. Having to juggle classes and homework that all demanded my entire attention forced me to make important decisions on what I could realistically learn from each class. I tried to take away the basics, fundamentals, from each class because those tend to build upon one another in future classes. I admit, in my non-chemical engineering related classes I have used short term memory to make the grades for that class to allow space in my long term memory for the information I believe should stay with me for the rest of my life. Even though I try to save space in my mind, I still find it challenging to really commit information in my memory for life. I completely agree with the “Curve of Forgetting” that I learned about in my first CHEN class, Principles. I find myself in need of brushing up on the important fundamentals, but rarely with the time to do so thoroughly. This class, CHEN 3600, has really stressed the importance of reviewing fundamentals and previous class information. These classes of my junior year have shown the importance of being able to apply previous knowledge, not simply remembering some of the equations and formulas. These classes bring together many of my previous class knowledge and I sometimes find my memory failing me, informing me that I, again, need to brush up on the fundamentals.

I think this class has really pushed my learning to become more effective because, more than other classes, it has loaded me down with information that I need to quickly sort into categories of importance. Although I wish I could learn every scrape of information tossed my way, I cannot realistically catch it all and commit it to memory. That’s why I believe I have been a more effective learner, by deciding what is most important to learn, and then spending my time wisely to really learn what’s most important or what will be most useful in the future. I hope to be able to become an even more effective learner with every class I take at Auburn and after I graduate, with every day on the job. I hope that professors realize that students have other commitments to classes other than theirs, and it is not always possible to learn every single point intended by the professor. That is why being an effective learner is so important. To maximize my learning, I try to be alert in class, take well organized notes, and study after classes to reinforce what was taught in class. Although I try my

hardest to accomplish learning in that fashion, life does sometimes get in the way. Lack of sleep, emotional and family problems, and feeling burnt out, all of these things often get in the way of effective learning. However, I try my best to overcome these issues in life and juggle classes and get out of Auburn as much learning as I can. I intend to take this attitude to the work place and get out every ounce of learning I can realistically take. I hope my personal journey of becoming an effective learner continues the rest of my life.

Student 20

On the first day of my first semester in junior level courses, Dr. Neuman told the class that it would take three things to succeed in Chemical Engineering at Auburn University. 1. Skills from previous courses. 2. Discipline 3. Knowing and changing your own limiting beliefs. I completely underestimated the second and third points. Since that day I have endured much failure; however, through this failure came an extremely valuable lesson: I learned how to learn. Although I clearly lacked the discipline required to do well in this major, I was most hindered by my limiting beliefs. I didn’t think going to class was all that important. I didn’t think doing homework was necessary. I thought a thorough review one night prior to an exam was more than enough to do well. Basically, I believed that in order to pass classes, all I needed to do was pass exams; however, all of the required elements to passing exams (attending class, doing homework, reviewing daily) were things I deemed unnecessary.

After I was introduced to ideas like Blooms Taxonomy of Thinking and the Curve of Forgetting, I knew I needed to make changes in my learning routine. I realized that for me, the most important aspect of learning was repetition. I almost never remember information after hearing it only once. I used to believe my brain was like a sponge and soaked up everything immediately after hearing it, but I was very wrong and I did not realize it until introduced to the Curve of Forgetting. Shown below, the Curve of Forgetting made it clear to me just how hard I was making the art of learning.

Sometimes I wouldn’t even have a second exposure to topics until weeks after they were introduced, and the Curve of Forgetting shows just how much I remembered at that point (almost nothing). The curve also taught me that “cramming” is NOT learning, and will not lead to an acceptable performance on an exam. Although last minute studying was enough in high school and even early college courses, it did not prepare me at all for junior level exams.

Blooms Taxonomy of Thinking helped me see exactly where I was struggling. In previous courses, all that had ever been required of me was to have knowledge and comprehension of a topic, but junior level courses require application. Knowing how to solve problems without an example was (and sometimes still is) difficult for me. I have been learning by example for many years, and making the jump from Comprehension to Application on the Blooms triangle has been a challenge. In the real world of engineering there are no examples to follow, and that’s why it is imperative that students learn to apply their knowledge without a step by step guide. Unfortunately, for many students in this major, failure is inevitable. There are some that make it to the graduation without ever having to repeat a course, but most students find themselves retaking courses. I was no exception; however, I do not see my failure as a negative experience. It has been a learning experience. I have learned that what I believed to be my personal best was not even close. Not giving up was very important and somewhat difficult. Sophocles once said “success is dependent on effort,” and I make it a point to say these words daily to remind myself that success does not happen magically, it takes effort.

Some of the most important lectures I have listened to have not been about Chemical Engineering concepts at all. Dr. Placek’s emphasis on learning may be the only reason I am still in this major. My limiting beliefs and lack of discipline are things I don’t think I could have corrected on my own, because I did not realize that they were problems at all! I still struggle to discipline myself to review concepts each day, but the improvements I have made are tremendous.

Student 21

Coming from a small, rural Alabama high school, I realized very quickly upon arrival at Auburn University that I would have to hone my time management and study skills. Even though I had graduated with an advanced diploma, my exposure to chemistry and mathematics had been limited. As I reflect upon those circumstances now, I do not necessarily feel that they were a disadvantage for me because I became even more highly motivated to study and seek out instruction from my professors. At the beginning of my second year, I was employed by AU Study Partners to tutor in calculus and chemistry. I tutored for two years and feel that the time I spent working with other students was as beneficial for me and my own learning as it was for my students. Tutoring required me to review, recall, explain, and apply information that I had acquired in calculus and chemistry classes.

Upon reflection, chemical engineering has certainly affected my study habits and the amount of time I study. I feel time management is one of the most challenging and evolving skills I strive to improve upon. On a daily basis, the engineering curriculum requires a huge commitment of one’s time. I also take classes in COSAM, and while they are rigorous classes, the time commitment required for those classes cannot compare – in my opinion – to the time commitments required in engineering. Computer programming is not one of my best skills and it takes more effort and time than most of my other engineering classes. I appreciate the fact that there are extra credit opportunities because this has been one class where exam grades do not always reflect effort or progress in the class. The various strategies taught concerning effective time management and problem solving are beneficial and are certainly applicable to all aspects of engineering. CHEN 3600 has provided much insight into the process of effective learning and the development of critical thinking. As a student, I realize that I have never given adequate consideration to the “process” of learning. I just tried to learn the material as best I could, by methods that worked for me – methods that evolved by trial and error, success and failure. This is one reason that I feel that the material presented in this course should be taught earlier in the chemical engineering curriculum. Application of this course’s content could help to shape students’ study habits throughout their college career. Also, earlier introduction of this material could help crystallize and confirm a student’s desire to become a chemical engineer. Furthermore, I feel material covered in this course would have been beneficial to me in other courses such as thermodynamics II and transport II.

This class has highlighted some important expectations of an engineer that earlier in my education I may not have totally embraced. Attention to detail in assignments and directions is a skill that I now see requires more commitment on my part. Obviously, I realized that emphasis to detail is required of an engineer; however, CHEN 3600 allows one to see firsthand the repercussions for failing to follow defined formats and directions completely. However, paradoxically, this class if one of the first where specific instructions are not always given and the method for solving the problem can be open-ended. Therefore, I believe that I have also learned that I must have confidence in my ability to obtain the “correct” solution. While having confidence in oneself is an important skill,

being able to effectively communicate with and learn from other engineers and non-engineers is a must!Bianca Williams

In his novel The History of Mr. Polly, H.G. Wells said of his main character that “his studies were pursued but never effectually overtaken.” Before I took the initiative to become an active learner, I was doing exactly that: only pursuing my studies. I have never had to work very hard to do well in school. If I went to class and did my homework, I would do well in the class. However, most of the time I wasn’t really learning the material. I was just “cruising” through school.

I went to a high school with a very rigorous curriculum. It seemed as if there was always a paper to turn in or a project to do. I did my work without though and turned it in just to get a grade. When I started college, I actually began to take an interest in my education. After my first semester, I soon realized that the things I was learning in my classes, I would actually have to apply later. I couldn’t just forget everything I learned in a class after I left it because everything I learned in one class I would have to take to the next. I would have to retain everything I learned in most of my class, primarily the ones related to chemical engineering.

When I started taking the CHEN 3600 class in summer 2009, although I was doing better, I still had not “effectually overtaken” my education. Very quickly, I realized that this overtaking was going to be necessary for me perform acceptably in this class or in any class I would take after it. The first real writing assignment we had was to create a spreadsheet to investigate models for predicting vapor pressures and write a report about what we had found. My partner and I started the report 2 days before it was due at the last minute. We wrote it very quickly just so we could get it over with, turn it in and get a grade. When the report was returned to us, we were told to rewrite it because it was not acceptable work. I also got my grade back on the first exam, and it wasn’t a very good one. I was not happy with that assessment of my work. I think that was the point when I made a conscious decision to take control of my education and become an active learner.

Before attempting to rewrite our report, my partner and I took what we had written to Dr. Placek so that he could point out where our mistakes were. Dr. Placek gave us several things to think about when rewriting the paper. We were not proofreading well enough. The first time we wrote the report, we spent around 10 minutes proofreading it, just checking for spelling and grammatical errors. After Dr. Placek pointed out significant errors in our writing, we spent hours going through every sentence of the paper, making sure that every line of the paper made sense. We turned the paper in for a second time and got an “A.” That was the hardest I had worked on a paper. I had taken control of my assignment and learned how to write effectively.

I also wanted to improve my test grade. I began writing practice programs for the class every day. However, I was unable to finish the summer semester due to an illness. When I started the class again in the fall, I had overtaken my studies. I read and highlighted

everything that was posted on the class website. Dr. Placek had spoken to the summer class at length about forgetting. He would ask us questions from chemical engineering courses that we had taken previously, and no one would have an answer. During the fall semester when he asks one of those questions and I cannot remember the concept, I go to my old textbooks and find the answer. I think that I have become much more of an effective learner than I have ever been. Now in my classes, I don’t just do my work to “get it done.” I am learning skills that I will have to use on a job one day. I think that this course has started me on the path toward becoming an effective learner and caused me to stop just pursuing my studies and effectually overtake them.

Student 22

Before understanding of how Computer-aided Chemical Engineering and being chemical engineering major has changed my outlook on learning, it is important to know more about my background as a student. Understanding what my study habits were like and the learning system I was forced to manipulate before taking this class will bring out many of the key points I want to present. All students attempt to manipulate the education system they are under. That is the most effective way to achieve high grades in classes and also the downfall of many students ability to learn effectively. I will now discuss the importance of these things, the struggles I have had because of them, some problems with the system, and how I think I can solve some of my personal struggles.

A challenge that many students from rural areas face is inadequate education. Teachers are not always qualified to teach the classes they teach or they are pressured to have high grade point averages from their students. Students are never taught to do anything more than memorize for the upcoming test. This is an excellent strategy to get high grades. Unfortunately, it is a horrible way to actually learn and remember information.I am a great example of this. Graduating Valedictorian of my class showed that I mastered manipulation of that system. Homework was short and easy. I played football and was president of many clubs and organizations and was still able to achieve that academic goal. Not only did the classes not teach you the knowledge you would need at the next level of education, but they also dumb your ability to really learn information at the next level.

A student’s ability to learn is limited throughout his or her life by several factors. It is not always based solely on how hard a student pushes himself. Under the Background section of this report, I presented a few facts that have shaped the way I learn. Graduating from high school as the top of my class was an honor, but it also describes a limitation. That milestone was the stopping point to my learning process. I developed my learning skills to the point that would deliver me that honor and then naturally I allowed that to be enough. I assumed that the “top of my class” was the level of understanding that I needed in order to be successful at the next level. It would not be until I reached Auburn that I realized how little I actually learned at the high school level.That is the problem with the learning system, even at Auburn. Students go from class to class, just as I did, with the wrong idea about how to learn. They do whatever methods are necessary to gain the letter grade of A. It is not until a student reaches a class that requires a higher level of understanding that he or she realizes that their style of learning is inadequate and must be adjusted in order to be competitive amongst others.

Many say that simply making the transition from high school to college classes is enough of a wake-up call to change the way they learn. To a certain extent that is true, but in all actuality it is only a step up in the difficulty of memorization. Instead of memorizing for one test or just a small amount of information, a student must retain more information for the duration of an entire semester. That, however, is only so that the final examination can be successfully passed.As soon as a student progresses into the next class, new information is taught and past information is barely used and so forgotten. Sometimes past knowledge is needed, but

often in such small amounts that a few minutes of class time will review all that is needed or more. As long as a student receives the top grade in that class, there is no reason for he or she to believe that his or her ability to learn is inadequate, and for many students that will graduate from Auburn with a degree, this is a true statement. Chemical engineering is the exception to this rule. Students that pride themselves in being within the one tenth percent of students that graduated from high school and managed to graduate at the university level as a chemical engineering major know what kind of work and understanding is needed to be successful in that major.

Chemical engineering is an entirely different animal when compared to other curriculums at Auburn. Not only must information be constantly studied, improved upon, and applied, but it is also a completely different type of information altogether. You cannot simply sit down and read the chapter or glimpse at examples. Students must learn the concepts then apply them to open ended problems in cases that require special situations or exceptions to rules. You must shape concepts to fit specific needs of problems that can be so complicated that diagrams or pictures are needed to keep up with all the information.

The curriculum is even structured differently to help with success. The problem lies more so with student’s abilities to make the transition in study habits rather than the structure of the program. This does not mean that the program is completely without fault, however. Large amounts of homework must be given in order in ensure that students keep up with the material. This often makes it difficult to keep up with studying in other classes that may not take into account homework that engineering majors are faced with. It can also hurt students in terms of learning concepts as students are more concerned with completing the homework on time and correctly rather than learning valuable concepts that will be needed for tests as well as for later courses in the curriculum.

I have been told repeatedly that the idea is to break down the way you think, and then rebuild it up so that you can be successful in chemical engineering courses. This method does work to a certain extent, but as I have gone through this curriculum I have found that I have not made a complete transition into the state of learning that I believe I need to be successful. I do have a grasp on some of the concepts but I believe that like many students, I have a better memory of what book I should look in to help solve a type of problem rather than of the equations and methods I need to solve a problem.

Sometimes it’s the knowledge that is missing. There are a lot of “mathematical tricks” or algebra type concepts that I should have learned long ago that would probably make problem solving much clearer. And as discussed in the Learning Process section, there are plenty of non-departmental concepts that I only learned for the course it was taught in, be that chemistry, biology, or biochemistry.

For many, this is the class that has brought many of the things I have discussed up until this point to light. Not only through reading and discussions of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning, the Curve of Forgetting, etc. did I learn I had a lot of changing to do in the way I learn, but also through the very nature of the materials taught in class. Programming requires a thorough understanding of concepts. Simply making sure you can use functions is not

enough, you must be able to apply these functions and concepts to many different types of problems. Even the most simply stated problems could be a nightmare to program in Excel without a complete understanding of concepts.Many times I feel that the homework may show only some aspects of understanding, and while I know that the ways in which these functions can be applied to problems is endless, the test questions can still catch you at unawares regardless of the amount of studying. I don’t know if that can be helped though, since every problem is practically different, there would be no way of giving similar problems without giving the actual test problems to students. Not to mention that giving similar problems would remove the professor’s ability to see if students are actually learning to apply the concepts rather than just memorizing a few commands.

As far as the second exam goes, I fell into the group of students that tried to copy and paste from previously worked problems to solve test problems. It was not until the test was nearly over and nearly all problems had been tried without success that I realized that I should have simply started from scratch and would have performed much better on the test.

I am grateful for the learning experience that this class has provided me, and I plan on continuing to learn from this class. Since the beginning of the class I have begun to work on the way I learn including use of the remembering method that was described in class. I feel that they are working significantly for concepts covered in this class and other classes I am enrolled in , however due to the busyness of the semester, there is no way for a student to go back and use this method to learn the things that should have been learned in previous classes. This is one of the limitations to doing well in this class. Learning methods will help with the materials covered now, but when solving Driven By Need problems, problems still exist due to lack of the ability to remember knowledge of the past.

Likewise, my drop in performance from the first test to the second is not a good representation of my application of learning techniques because as discussed earlier, it was my test taking skills that were at fault. Copying and pasting past code proved to be a bad idea.

Like my fellow peers in this class, I will continue to use the new methods that I have learned in class to perfect my study skills, remember more information, and improve my understanding of concepts. Unlike many other classes, however, all those aspects will be sought after for more than just the achievement of the letter grade A in Computer-aided Chemical Engineering. Hopefully, acquiring these skills will allow me to be a better student and perform better in my coming classes as well. Maybe the feelings of confusion and remorse that have occurred due to lack of knowing how to learn can be reduced if not eliminated in the future with these methods, and this learning experience can be the only one of its kind I am faced with.

Student 23

Students in the department of Chemical Engineering must strive to become effective learners. It is important to get the most educational value out of each course. Each course taught in the department is built on one other that allows students to gain better understanding on various topics each semester. It is important to remember information that was previously learned and to effectively use it in various situations. Retention and understanding of topics are critical.

Becoming an effective learner takes a lot of practice. Gaining knowledge from a daily lecture takes more than just going to class and listening to the professor. The lecture should be revisited in the students mind. As the student thinks of the lecture, the important topics that were discussed should be written down. Looking at and studying the lectures on a daily basis allows the student to become more familiar with the subject that is being taught. The more time that is spent reflecting on the notes the more information the student can regurgitate without having to look back at the written information. The student is learning the information and not just memorizing. When a student memorizes information, the information can be lost fairly quickly.

In CHEN 3600, students are taught how to use Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Visual Basic. Working with these two programs takes a lot practice and a familiarity to become a quick and precise programmer. When learning Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic, There is more work to be done than looking back and learning the notes. The programming language takes time to get use to. Time needs to be spent learning the program and trying to produce various programs on your own. The more practice that is made the more familiarized you are with the program.

To be an effective learner, students must follow the topics of Blooms Taxonomy. As students proceed through each semester and learning the information, knowledge is gained from each course. Going from semester to semester, more knowledge is built upon gaining a better comprehension of the material. The more knowledge that is retained and is understood can be used in various applications that are presented to the student. Once there is a wide range of information that understood by the student, different aspects can be analyzed and synthesized on a critical level. Finally, the student should be able to evaluate and make judgment on an application which indicates the students’ knowledge and understanding of the subject at hand.

Student 24

Starting as freshman, we all seemed to be separated into four different categories; there are those who began college because their parents told them too, those who came to have fun (or get there MRS degree), some who came because it was what they thought they were suppose to do since everyone else was doing it, and the select few who came to college because they wanted to know things, to be a wealth of knowledge and to make something of themselves.

I will continue to write about my personal journey starting with a brief background of my education and of how I decided to make Auburn my home for the next four years after my college degree. Then talk about my most influential classes, teachers, how they impacted my life, and some other things that would benefit Auburn University graduates of the chemical engineering department.

I began my schooling in a public elementary school. From the beginning, teacher’s noticed something different about me as student and I was pulled aside for special testing to be enrolled in the Gifted Program (program with significantly more challenging problems that would require me to take separate classes that were more difficult than mainline classes). The students were chosen for the Gifted Program by teachers; my class had less than 15 students who were selected from surrounding elementary schools in our rural county .

I continued to shine as a student until middle school, more specifically when I entered the 7th grade. That year more and more trouble arose with me as a student - not following the rules, not paying attention in class and talking. Although my grades never suffered my behavioral issues became more and more noticeable. My parents decided I needed to move to a different school, hoping if they removed me from my comfort zone I would be less social in class and concentrate on my studies, so I moved from the public school with all my friends to a private school in the next county over for the second half of my 7th grade year. It was not long before trouble started again, normally you would say if you beat the child enough they’ll act better, but just as much as my parents were upset so was I. I would come home crying and upset because I did try to behave at school and did not intentionally get into trouble or act purposefully against the teachers will.

Beginning with my 8th grade year, my parents decided to give it another shot at transferring schools. I was sent to Ohio, to the school my mother graduated from, Andrews School for Girls, a college preparatory boarding school. I was excited, and began my new school year with another set of unfamiliar faces. But low and behold teachers were not fond of me, except my Physical Education teacher. I had continued to make very high grades but paid very little attention in class, and the disciplinary actions did not cease. Finally it was thought to be in my best interest to bring me back home after I completed the first half of the year of my 8th grade year, and my mother would continue my education through homeschooling. Boy, did she not realize what she was getting into!

After spending the second half of the semester battling with home schooling it was brought to the attention of my mother by a friend who was a teacher, that I was a perfect model

example of a student with AdHd (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). This teacher had seen me through middle school and taught at my first public school, and had just recently experienced a student similar to me. This claim of AdHd showed to be very evident when symptoms and examples were brought to her attention. Some issues that we’re mention and that were on the disciplinary notes were difficulty sustaining attention in tasks, does not seem to listen when spoken to directly, often misplaces things and forgets daily activities (like parents signing the daily activity which is to be turned in everyday), fidgets with hands, feet or squirms in seats, often is on the go as if driven by a motor, talks excessively, blurts out answers before the question has been stated. These examples were the perfect model of an AdHd student, so what seemed to be boredom and just periodic disciplinary acts that were taken in school was actually a condition that just had gone unnoticed.

The home schooling experience enabled my mom to see clearly how I handled my school activities; it all seemed to make perfect sense. So action was taken, and I was diagnosed with AdHd, but the doctor said that medications for AdHd children was not recommended to be used, in order to make the parents life easier dealing with the child but should only be used if the child could not function properly, or do well in school. This was not the case for me, so my parents made the choice of getting me involved in extra circular activities to keep my never ending motor (my hyperiness) down to a minimum, and be cautious of my consumption of certain things like caffeine. This did help some and I was able to finish my high school career at a private Christian school 75 minutes away from my home town.

My extra circular activities were showing cattle all over Florida and the south east, and I also attended many national and international livestock expos. This is the door that led me to Auburn University. I came up to purchase some show cattle at the Diamond M farm, Dr. Maples Cattle Company. And there I meet Dr. Maples and Dr. Tatarchuk, and they talked with me about Auburn, so I decided to tour the campus. I fell in love immediately and knew at the age of 14 that Auburn was where I was going to attend college. I finished all my high school requirements a semester early, December 2006, and decided to start taking college class in the spring of 2007. I waited to walk with my class since they only offered graduation once a year. Once I graduated High School I immediately moved to Auburn and started on summer classes.

College was great, I was out on my own full of life, goals, things I wanted to accomplish and do, until I finished my first semester. I made a D in calculus one. This made no sense I had always excelled in math and science and completely crushed me. I cried, and cried because I had tried so hard but I didn’t understand what the teacher saying, could not remember how to work the problems on the test even though I had worked them the day before. I would sometimes even forget I had class because I would get busy walking around campus and realize I was super late for class. This was definitely not the image I had in mind for what my college experience was going to be like. My parents sat me down over spring break to discuss with me the possibility of getting reevaluated for AdHd and medications that may help.

I was reevaluated and began taking a new medication; immediately I noticed a difference. Without the new medication when my chemistry professor talked about something new I would never understand because my train of thought would be lost as soon as he started talking about something new. Then I would have to go back and read about the material (which was a joke, because I could never sit still long enough), a lot of times I would get a tutor. With the new medication when he explained it once, it made perfect sense, and if it did not I could quickly read the chapter in one sitting where before it would take a whole week to read 30 pages , if I ever finished reading. My grades dramatically improved, and I had regained my confidence in my intelligence.

I continued to remain on medications to aid my disability until fall of my sophomore year. I had to take a semester off from taking medicine, and my grades dropped once again, so I decided to coop the next semester so I could work and make money to pay for college and medicine that I would need to complete my education, and to succeed in at my personal goals and dreams. After coming back from the second coop session, I entered the second semester of my sophomore year. While sitting in the first day of Dr. Lipke’s class she had said one thing, that gave me an epiphany. She said in similar words that, “It is not my job to make you learn the material, rather my job to test that you know it, and I fully expect that you have read the material I will teach before that class day” . This never occurred to me, silly as it maybe, I had never before heard a teacher say this and brought to me a whole new way of learning.

Dr. Maples also brought a new light to my way of learning. I have always had trouble with flipping numbers ( examples: mixing up b’s with d’s , 2’s flipping upside down to 6’s) , messing up formulas, and making other careless errors, but when I entered Dr. Maples class I was bound and determined to do well , besides these debilitating issues. Again, in the first few weeks of classes I went to his office for hours to discuss a sample problem that he gave to me after I told him I wanted extra work outside of the class to better understand the material. And if you know Dr. Maples, you would know it was a doozy. He loves to challenge the minds of young intellects, and that he did. After I showed him my failing attempt at the problem and laughed and said well you do not understand the true meaning of the problem and this material. Although I cannot remember exactly what I got wrong I do remember the trick, or science to that problem was to recognize that even though the problem did not state that it was a phase change, that the rise in temperature should have struck a bell. An example like this had not been shown in class but I realized after that meeting with Dr. Maples, that we are engineers (or striving to be), there are no cookie cutter problems and to be able to solve problems I’d have to start with the simple basics science laws, and ask every little question to understand the underline meaning. This applies to formulas too I need to understand how to derive them where the numbers (constants) came from and the general equations along with its assumptions that apply with them, since I struggle so much with memorization.

Spring 10 was probably the most life changing moment as far as education goes or so I thought, then I began the fall semester. From this point on I knew that I could accomplish

anything I set my mind to in school as long as I followed those simple tools I learned in the spring 2010, first one from Dr. Lipke, teachers are not there to spoon feed you information rather a personal incentive would need to be taken before each class in order to do well , and the second one from Dr. Maples, if you understand the true meaning of thermodynamics (in that class) then the any question he puts on a test wont phase you, just like in everyday problems understand true meaning of an issue and solving it will not be a problem.

As I practiced these new tools for my next set of classes, reading the required material in advance, reading other outside material for better understanding, recognizing the true problem or issue, practicing extensively I was sure to be set for success….or was I? Well this did not happen with my first round of tests, for Transport 2 I failed the first test, not because I did not know the material because I did, but because there was no partial credit on a 50 minute test that had nine work out problems on it. In fact several people I tutored while I was in thermodynamics actual scored higher than me. Again not because they knew it better , but rather I simply ran out of time to go back and catch my typical number flipping errors, or other careless errors. Next test, was the computer aided test; I was ready, I had practiced many different graph function, formulas , and spent weeks on preparing for the test to make sure I was more than ready for the quick test of knowledge. My outcome was complete failure once again.

This ever disappointing pattern was ruining my confidence and disproving my idea that I could accomplish anything. Even more disappointing was the fact that I had not deviated from the two most influential points that I had discovered the previous spring, and I still had not done well. I poured every waking second into school and still did not do well, what more could I really do I already was sleeping 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night (on a good night) , had little social activity unless it was a study group, felt more than prepared for each test and that I fully understood the material.

After the guidance of a wise professor; self evaluation was needed to discover the root of my problems. My knowledge of the material was evident in both cases of the tests, correct formulas were being used, I continued to verbally explain all the big, small , and underlying concepts to my transport teacher including doing some heavy derivations that was said to be far above my expected knowledge thus far with spherical / cylindrical heat transfer. Recall was good, applications show to be good during non testing environments, just when I entered into the room so full of tension you could cut it with a butter knife and sat down and glared at the piece of paper written “TEST” at the top. That’s when it all fell to pieces!

I reviewed my mistakes and test errors, after all you can learn the most through the mistakes you have made, and realized that every mistake I had made was careless mistakes or failure to pay close attention to small details1 , like when it says make it look exactly like the graph shown. Ambiguity on some of the problems also cost me a lot of points for my computer aided test. For example, it read there are 301 points, meaning if the range is 20 each step is 20/301. My interpretation of 301 points during that test time was “the problems have 301 points from which it would be graded on”. If you got all 301 points that

the professor was wanting then you got a 25/25 actual test points allotted for the problem. Does not make much sense, but to a fast processing brain, little things are over looked and time does not allow reviewing. If the things I processed out of the material actually made sense or perhaps I read into it wrong.

As you can see now, a constant pattern is developing for the reason behind this semester’s epic failure in my two chemical engineering classes. Even though I am reading the material properly, obtaining all the required information given at lecture and required reading as well as outside optional reading that I had found I have found it requires a longer time to double check my work for the constant careless errors and long time to develop more clarity with the test problem has been a must for my continuing my education.

Something else I truly feel that would benefit the Auburn Chemical Engineering program is to replace current writing courses to courses that are geared more towards engineering and current World Literature which serves the purpose of being able to analyze reading material, to replace the World Literature with Technical engineering writing.

Since both reading and writing engineering papers are essential for the very being of engineering (you cannot show the world your inventions, discoveries if you cannot effectively show them through writing or reading technical information for more understanding on your current lab project..) Also it would be helpful to have more classes that are taught like this one at the beginning of the semester. This class teaches you to follow instructions precisely and watch details because details and instructions do matter.

Learning these tools in my freshman year would have given me a far better successful career here at Auburn, and I would love to see Dr. Placek teach the mat lab class for Chemical engineering students for the freshman curriculum as well, while incorporating the valuable life lessons of writing, following directions, and paying very close attention to details which would have helped me early on overcome my crippling issue of following directions.

In conclusion, no single individual has the same personal journey, yet many of us have reached the same forks in the road. My personal journey was the struggles I’ve had with the constant battle of the racing of thoughts and solutions that takes place in my brain. Separating, organizing, and relaying them has been somewhat of a challenge, but one I am determined to overcome this disability.

Learning and understanding is such an exhilarating process, and one of which I plan to continue for years to come, but the anxiety of taking tests and not being able to display my breathe of knowledge is far from exciting. There are several issues that could be resolved or helped by a little adjustment on Auburn’s part; one of which would be highly beneficial to all chemical engineering undergraduates and be agreed upon by most of the industry since English (which includes both reading and writing) is not an engineer’s strong point.

Student 25

Overall CHEN 3600 has proven to be more problematic than any other previous class that I have taken at Auburn. It has demonstrated that I no longer can wait to ask questions, and it has also taught me about failure and how I can rebound from it. This class is essential for learning how to learn and how to critically think, but I feel that a few small adjustments are needed for superior results. First, groups and group work should be bigger, perhaps groups of 3 or 4. Last, I feel like there is too much concentration on ask problems on whether or not something can be done rather than should it be done and can it be applied elsewhere.

Since the beginning of the semester my critical thinking skills have been challenged in just about every way. It challenged them in timed and difficult situations, mirroring real life applications. This is a good part of the class, however I do think that it would be better to create some kind of 3 person group for projects in order to fully help those people who are struggling in the class as well as input a wider range of creativity benefiting all group members. Teaching others is the best way to learn.

My macro abilities and micro skills are what have been challenged the most this semester, and I feel like if one were to master this material, passing the departmental requirements for the Concept Inventory Exam conceptually might be easier when thinking from a programming perspective.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning is frequently reminding me of where I am in the class. I am recalling most of what is expected of me, but of that knowledge I am only able to apply a certain portion. I understand that the Curve of Forgetting is crucial to my understanding and application portion of the class. However I also understand that the forgetting curve does not apply if one does not understand the material to begin with. I have worked recently with one of the teacher’s assistants and I feel much more confident with understanding when to apply some of the more key programming functions or logic.

When comparing CHEN 3600 to the industrial world, I often tell myself that the assigned task needs to be accomplished. However, I also ask myself what the application has to do with the industrial world. I interned for an entire summer for a water treatment company in Orlando, Florida. Over that period of time the extent of my excel use asked of me was to create an excel spreadsheets or graphs based on experimental data I had done. It is hard to apply what I am learning in the classroom to anything I did there, especially making a spiral function or making a string show up on the screen. However, I also understand that getting the job done is the reason for employment in the first place. Coming from a responsible family I understand the consequences of failure at home, and I can only dream of the horrors in the workplace. With this said, I am suggesting that the first test should be over whether or not the basic excel functions can be applied towards real life assignments asked by employers.

I have had a lack of progress in this class because I have depended on leaning on others to help me learn. I learn and apply better in groups, but I know now that having a group to

work with may not always be readily available. This has been a radiating obstacle for me, and I have tried to work around it on my own. I learned the hard way that this might not be the right answer. Recent hints and help sessions from the teacher assistants have allowed me gain basic programming skills vital to my learning success. I look to continually improve my programming and critical thinking skills this term, and hope to reach a form of excellence by the final exam. I firmly believe that striving for excellence is essential for progress.

Prior to this class, my experience with different learning methods and especially Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning were very limited. I was introduced to the Curve of Forgetting in CHEN 2100 by Dr. Byrne during lecture, although it was not covered in great depth. Only in passing was learning actually emphasized in any of my classes, and I feel as though it was a lesson that I would have greatly benefited from at an earlier stage in my development, most definitively before I arrived at Auburn University.

I feel that learning how to think is a great challenge in any class that you take, Psychology requires different modes of thought than Physics, and problem solving requires a vastly different skill set than recitation. In my journey to become an effective learner this has been a great struggle for me.

I had made it a goal at the beginning of this course to set a regiment of what I believed would make me successful in the class. With Dr. Placek’s recommendation, I was setting out to recall my lessons in journal form, and review them at a later date. I figured that this one thing alone would help me greatly succeed in the class. In addition to this I planned on reading all materials ahead of time and completing all supplemental material given by the instructor. In addition to this, as the semester progressed I planned on attending the instructional support that the graduate assistants offered every week. I was aware that this class would involve a far greater effort than most of the other classes that I had taken before.

In regard to the taxonomy of learning, I had a grasp on the corporeal idea that there were different levels of understanding, but this really helped create a tangible way to assess myself on where I was in the process. This tool of evaluation will be very beneficial to me to be carried forward to the rest of my classes and future jobs. In addition to this I think the macro abilities and micro skills list is a good reference to check myself on what skills I need to be adding to my toolkit to become an effective engineer.

In no other class have I taken a better assessment of my learning style than in this class. Throughout the semester I have had to cope with many shortcomings, and had to strive to better motivate myself to continue even when I am doing well. It is a struggle when going through a course which involves such mental rigor, and at several times I notice that I have lost focus and my self-discipline has faltered. At points earlier in the course I found myself writing in a journal, reflecting on what I learned for the day. I know that this has helped me to retain the information that I had spent time writing in the journal. However, over the last month I haven’t brought myself to do this consistently, and instead have been introspectively recalling the lessons over the course of the day. This failure to regiment

myself manifested in a poor performance on my last test. Even though the results were clear, I am not so sure that this may be entirely attributed to my lack of strictly following the plan that I had laid out at the beginning of the semester. I am not entirely sure that I have made a good approach to learning the discipline of programming. It is unlike any other subject we have encountered yet, and at times can be much more difficult. The most upsetting thing to me throughout the process of the last test, was that I was able to complete the example problems without too much difficulty, but when it came to the exam I seemed to lack the application that I thought I had a very strong grasp on.Up to this point in the class, I feel as though I am definitely gaining a better grasp on programming, and a much greater control over excel as a platform. Both of these things I am pleased with. However, I am not (up to this point) pleased with myself as a student or an engineer. I have found trouble being disciplined and making strides to learn more effectively. This takes effort, and I am afraid that I have fallen short in this area consistently. I hope that I am better in the future, but I know that it is going to be an effort, and it seems daunting at times.

Needless to say, this class has been nothing less than a rude awakening as to how much I really had left to learn about learning itself, and how much work I needed to do to form myself into an effective thinker and productive engineer.

I feel that even though I have many shortcomings up to this point in the class that I can still be very successful and get even more out of it than I had anticipated. I will continue to struggle with motivation, but I think that I certainly am capable of becoming a more effective learner, student, and engineer. I would like to try and continue scribing recollections of lessons and particularly paying more attention to what I learn in the context of the taxonomy of learning. I would like to make weekly assessments of the knowledge I gained for the previous week and at that point perhaps write some of my own problems (which was previously unmentioned as a method I found to be really beneficial from the in class quiz given).

I am confident that knowing these things that I will be able to move forward and succeed in this class. I hope to reflect further on this in the future and realize some of the goals I have written.

Student 26

According to Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking, higher order thinking begins at the lowest levels of knowledge retention. The most significant stages of my journey to knowledge began in my later years of high school. At this stage, I would consider myself to have been a “challenged thinker.” The rigors of my high school were intense, and my graduating class had a reputation for academic excellence: so much so that Newsweek Magazine named my high school to be the number one ranked public high school in the United States. Such a title was not given freely, and to earn it, we were exposed to Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes beginning in our sophomore year. Because it was a magnet school, students often opted to drop out rather than face the academic obstacles ahead. My senior class dropped from over 150 to 79 students over the course of the four year program: a statistic strikingly reminiscent of the chemical engineering drop out rate. Unfortunately, even the top public high schools are subject to the same shortcomings that so often represent modern American education, and the multiple-choice examination system made me more adept at recognition than actually retaining knowledge. As such, I was faced with difficult problems, but could often rely more on my test-taking abilities rather than my knowledge base to succeed. Mathematics and science courses seldom adopted this philosophy, but often the only studying I forced myself to do was to look at homework problems, memorize the solution format, and regurgitate that format on exams. Extracurricular participation in organizations such as math team began to cement what I had learned while in the classroom through additional exposure, but with higher level applications. With this process, I began to move more to the stage of being a “beginning thinker” by devoting additional time to study in the form of exposure, but not in practice. Despite graduating in the upper ranks of my high school class, I was only at the stage of “beginning thinker” and also had the disadvantage of the Icarus Complex that accompanied graduation from a prestigious high school.

My first sentiments upon arriving at Auburn were artificially optimistic, and my freshman year did me no favors by reinforcing this artificial optimism. Because I graduated with close to thirty credit hours, I was able to enroll in many sophomore-level classes, such as Calculus III, but my high school credentials helped me overcome my intimidation. However, even at the sophomore level, many classes still relied on the same basic study principles I used to succeed in high school, and as such, lulled me into a false sense of security. I continued to be a “beginning thinker” until Fall Semester of sophomore year when I was introduced to Dr. Byrne’s Principles of Chemical Engineering course. With the onset of this course came my introduction to comprehension and my evolution to a “practicing thinker.” An undeniable and inescapable aspect of Principles was the need for regular practice. This was the first course where I was forced to seek additional examples to complement the homework problems for a more complete understanding. Principles would prove to be a study of essential underlying aspects and elements that I continue to build on today, such as mass and energy balances. At this point, I must add that most study I had engaged in had been private, individual study where I relied only on myself to accomplish tasks in homework or exams. In Principles, however, there was also the advent of the first group project that utilized material we had learned to solve a potential scenario. Using a team of six members, we were expected to suggest methods of optimization for

common industrial components that included furnaces, pumps, and heat exchangers, as well as recycle streams that boost efficiency. This particular activity revealed a striking truth: that knowledge is only as good as your ability to adequately convey it to others. To be able to acquire this “art,” however, a competent level of comprehension must be demonstrated. This project also began to move toward application because of the degree of innovation behind the optimization process. Overall, Principles of Chemical Engineering would serve to demonstrate my intellectual journey from knowledge to comprehension, and its concepts will undoubtedly be continually reinforced throughout my chemical engineering career.

The transition from Principles to Transport Processes brought with it the shocking fact that “life is not ideal.” Transport I and II built on the basics I was exposed to in Principles, but expanded to encompass novice concepts easily applicable to industries, such as pulp and paper and petroleum. By building on previously learned concepts and relating them to new concepts, these classes have been able to slow the decline of my learning curve over time through repeated exposure opportunities that convert short term concepts to long term memory. Furthermore, these newly encountered non-idealities often can be solved using a variety of different methods ranging from experimental data analysis to equations based on trend models. In short, this new collection of non-ideal problems differs from the old set in that they require a great deal of additional thought, as well as knowledge of which method corresponds to certain conditions and assumptions. Such thinking can only come through heightened levels of comprehension and understanding.

My evolution of thinking was further expanded last summer when I began research of carbon nanotubes with Dr. Davis’ lab group. This was the first time I had witnessed chemical engineering concepts in a commercially-applicable use. It is also where I began development of application of thinking. The field of carbon nanotubes is relatively new, scientifically speaking, with most interest beginning in the 1990’s. As such, we have to rely significantly on previously based concepts of other micro-particles and materials, such as interactive properties carbon fiber, and determine if these same characteristics apply to the materials of interest: namely single-walled carbon nanotubes and multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Unlike all previous learning I have engaged in, in this learning, there are no examples in the textbook. As such, I have relied on my knowledge and comprehension bases and have had to discern which of these concepts are relevant to the current objectives. Even when data is collected, I have been required to use analysis to determine whether or not the data is sensible and realistic. The knowledge I have acquired while in the lab environment has been accompanied with fewer certainties than any other knowledge I have engaged in thus far. As such, it has forced me to be confident in my own abilities, as well as drawing from a series of new, as well as familiar concepts to justify any claims I might make.

Before entering CHEN 3600, I had heard several “horror stories” from older students who portrayed the course not only as being exceedingly difficult, but also as being extremely applicable in the future: not only in chemical engineering courses, but in academia in general. Regardless of the potential rewards, I was anxious about the task ahead. When I had enrolled in MATLAB my freshman year, I found programming proved to be more of a

foreign language than any other course I had experienced thus far, and I expected Visual Basic and Excel to be the same. In all of my previous courses, I was only expected to show performance on paper. This required little comprehension. However, in Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, I am expected to be able to explain concepts to a computer for it to interpret. Explaining complex ideas to a computer in simple language requires extensive comprehension. For this comprehension, I have learned how to utilize “step-wise” and “driven by need” methods to reorganize these complex solutions into a series of simple steps. To successfully perform either of these methods, one must possess a thorough understanding of not only the immediately relevant concepts under scrutiny, but also the underlying concepts as well. This causes redefinition of even the simplest concepts because it often eliminates many “shortcuts” we have come to rely on because they are not universally applicable, nor are they properly understood by the computer. This technique, while it seems difficult, causes correlation between many concepts that, beforehand, may not have been recognizably related, which is a method of mental simplification. This simplification allows application to new situations based on prior knowledge obtained from previous applications. Even though it has taken time to familiarize myself with these methods, it has been crucial in my mental evolution from comprehension to application.

Along with this heightened level of comprehension is the new level of application that accompanies the assignments and exams of this course. Living up to the course description, the exams are not “cookie cutter” renditions of the homework assignments. As such, performance requires using previous knowledge in unfamiliar circumstances with confidence. To obtain this level of confidence, I have had to not only work suggested assignments, but have also spent countless hours making my own adaptations and renditions of problems and finding creative solutions to them. Questions have arisen from seemingly random sources, such as determining the statistics of “winning Monopoly” at a McDonald’s restaurant or score projections for a certain football game using statistical analysis. It is only through working any manner of possible problems that the unexpected can be more predictable, and to do this has required advancement from thought comprehension to application. I hope this level of application will prepare me to move from “practicing thinker” to “advanced thinker” where, by using this practice technique to solve new scenarios, I can advance in keeping with this practice.

While technical writing may not be a significant portion of this course as it has been in the past, format remains an essential aspect of CHEN 3600. Uniformity is an underlying facet of industry. Without it, efficiency can be compromised leading to losses of time and revenue. Fortunately, Computer Aided has embedded this uniformity in me from day one, under consequence of losing significant amounts of credit. This knowledge may not be found in Bloom’s Taxonomy, but will be very helpful in an industrial setting.

Although my journey toward becoming a “master thinker” has a long way to go, I believe Computer Aided Chemical Engineering has not only caused my mental advancement from the knowledge base to the comprehension and application stages, but it has also exposed me to concepts such as Bloom’s Taxonomy. Before this course, I had no knowledge of the different stages of learning. I was ignorant in thinking there were only categories of knowledge and application. However, CHEN 3600 has shown a light on my journey to

critical thinking in that it has not only shown me where I stand, but also how far I yet have to travel. While this journey began several years ago, Computer Aided is outstanding in the fact that it has presented these new concepts of thinking to me, and has given me a roadmap of how to successfully approach the trials and obstacles that lie ahead.

Student 27

This semester has been a very unique experience for me. This was my first semester back after completing two consecutive co-op terms, and I was also facing the task of retaking a course. The time away from school allowed me to take time and get myself together. I think that becoming an effective learner can be a very emotional task. Your mindset can very easily take over your strategy for meeting your goals. My first time in CHEN 3600 was very tough for me. Not only was it hard learning the new material, I did not know how to overcome the emotional distress that arrived from this struggle. This was the first time I let my emotions completely disrupt my learning process. After that semester was over, I was determined to change my attitude and way of thinking. I realized that my learning experience was completely in my hands. Co-oping also helped me. I learned that it is not about being the smartest person, but it is about getting the job done. When you need help, do not be afraid to ask questions. No one expects you to know everything.

This semester was my first time putting into action my new perspective. So far I have had very good results. Both of my tests grades in CHEN 3600 were much better this time. The class is still challenging but not overwhelming. I think that some of the changes made within the department have been useful but there are more things that could be done to help continue improve learning throughout the student body. Offering a more diverse selection of professors within our department may help students with different learning techniques do better in our courses. Overall, our department does a very good job presenting multiple opportunities to get help.

Student 28

My personal journey towards effective learning is much longer and more involved than most of my classmates. As a disclaimer let us go ahead and establish the fact that I am a nontraditional student in this program. I am 28 years old, married, and I have had at least two dozen jobs since I started working at age 14. I have attended two other colleges and have two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Georgia, one in applied biotechnology and one in biological sciences. After graduating from UGA I worked for two years as a research/field technician for the universities forest hydrology department. Although I loved the work, the pay and future career opportunities were limited for those fields and I chose to utilize a VA scholarship I had been sitting on to attend Auburn and pursue an interesting career with high pay and high employment. Compare this to my typical classmate, who is most likely 20 years old, has never held a job, and has never known anything but school, as they began college directly following their 12 years of public education (this is a sweeping generalization and will not represent everyone, but I am willing to lay money that it describes at least two thirds of my classmates). I believe my unique circumstances give me a keen insight into effective learning that is not shared among my classmates.

It seems that in giving this assignment you would like a little insight into the mind of your typical student.

Let’s look at this from the view of a typical 20 year old student who just spent the last 12 years before college in a public school. As I was one of these “typical” students just a few years ago, I believe I can offer some insight.

When it comes to succeeding in a public school the fact is, it is NOT necessary to actually learn. If you show up you will pass, if you put forth ANY effort you will generally get A’s and B’s. This is a fact. My wife’s 17 year old sister is a senior in high school and has consistently missed 50 days of school per year for the entirety of her high school career. The counselors at that high school have assured her that she will pass as long as she shows up a certain number of days. She needs only to show up and they will pass her, this has been told both to her and her parents multiple times. There is no mention of learning or applying oneself, merely showing up. These are the rigorous academic standards imposed by public schools in order to prepare the future generation for the working world or, the main emphasis in the last decade, college. After 12 years of such instruction, is it no wonder that the typical college student expects to be spoon fed and passed?

My best friend is an algebra II teacher (the reason he is doing this, the economy, is an entirely different discussion) in a central Florida high school. He has a Masters degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, so we can assume he knows what a rigorous academic curriculum is like. When he was hired he was asked by the administration to prepare his students for college as most of his students would be seniors and planned to attend college. On the first day of school he took a survey and discovered that out of his 120 students, all but 5 planned to attend college the next year, and most all of them were interested in being as prepared as possible.

He failed 70% of his students on their first test. He attributed the failures to the fact that, not only did they not know the remedial algebra I the test covered, but they did not know basic 7th grade math. After that test he was called into the school administrator’s office and told, in no uncertain terms, that he could give no more than 10% of his students a grade of D or lower. He was forced to do this in order for the school to maintain some sort of federal funding. He was told that this is common practice and basically expected of every teacher in the state. For some reason he thought the administration was serious about preparing the students for college.When asked what she wants to do after high school my wife’s sister will immediately, almost reflexively, reply that she plans to attend college. She can offer no reasons as to why she plans to pursue a college education other than claiming “that’s what everyone does”. During the 12 years of public education most students receive, it is purported daily that one’s measure of success in life is whether or not they attend college. They are under a constant reminder that the education they are receiving is “preparing” them for college. Is it no wonder that an incoming freshman is often perplexed at what is required of them in college? They believe they have had 12 years of so called “preparation” for college, when in fact, the 12 years they spent in public schools has most likely done irreparable harm to their ability to succeed in an actual rigorous academic program. Some colleges themselves are responsible for the same behavior.

Two years after high school I saved up enough money working on a farm to attend college and I enrolled in a small state college, Columbus State University (CSU). It was much like my high school (on the same street in fact) and could probably be described as the 13th grade save for the fact that no attendance was taken. I cruised through classes easily and found that just showing up and jotting down something that resembled what the professor wrote every day, was enough to earn B’s and C’s. When I transferred to the University of Georgia (UGA) after two years I was under the impression that I could continue this pattern. It was during my first semester at UGA that I learned just how wrong I was. I was enrolled in calculus III (I had taken calculus I and II at CSU and cruised easily to A’s in both courses), and thought that just showing up and jotting some equation on the test would ensure at least a C. So I did nothing more than show up to class, scribble complete rubbish on the test. Tuned out completely, I did not learn a thing that semester. I failed that course. I remember being so completely dumfounded when I received my grades that first semester at UGA. I distinctly remember thinking to myself while looking at those grades “but I went to class and took the test, how did this happen?”. You see, my entire academic career, high school and junior college included, I had been spoon fed and passed along, in programs where you could not fail. Up to this point I had never had to apply myself or put in any great deal of effort to succeed academically. My “preparation” for college was a sick joke.

I learned the hard way that effective learning, time management, and effort are required for academic success in college. Sometimes a kick in the teeth is the only way to realize this. I wish I had gotten the wakeup call earlier in my life, say grade school, but sadly the first real time I was required to effectively learn and apply myself academically was my third year of college.

Now let us get down to the issue of implementation of effective learning. The purpose of the CHEN program, for me anyway, is to prepare a student to effectively use what he has learned in the real world, or job if you will. This is where there is an even bigger disconnect for the typical student. Most have never held a job. You are absolutely correct when you tell them that an employer does not expect them to sit in a desk 8 hours a day doing nothing, but alas I can see this little tidbit bouncing off their heads as I am sure you see as well. While the jobs I held before attending Auburn were important, the single biggest eye-opener, as far as the CHEN program is concerned, is my co-op experience. My co-op experience was quite nontraditional as well. I co-oped for 5 terms, instead of the usual 3, and did 4 of those terms consecutively. This effectively put me on the job for 19 months total with 15 of those being consecutive. I co-oped with Noramco, which is a division of Johnson&Johnson. Noramco manufactures several products, the most abundant products being oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methylphenidate. The attention to detail and level of documentation required for the daily operation of the plants that that manufactures these materials was eye opening. Additionally, during my co-op terms the recession hit and cuts were made to staff. At first they were just going to fill open positions with fewer people, and then they were just not going to fill those positions, and finally they were not going to fill those positions and cut some positions. A team from corporate was brought in and everyone’s job was scrutinized down to every minute of their day. Some postions were cut, an engineer that had been with the company for 10 years was let go, not because of poor performance but because his job could be eliminated by delegating more duties to other engineers who, according to the investigation team, had a few minutes to spare every day. The moral of this story is that in the real corporate world results are expected out of everyone, every minute of every day. Additionally, I learned that substandard work was not acceptable. You are awarded no C’s in real life, your work is professional and correct or you are gone. At one point I was sitting with the director of engineering when we received some datasheets from an outside company. The datasheets were poorly arranged, discontinuous and it was obvious that whoever sent the sheets put no time into them. The engineering director handed me the data and asked me to clean it up and make in presentable, as he was leaving he turned to me and said “By the way, if you ever handed me data like that, I would fire you.” . That is the kind of lesson that can only be learned on the job.

From my experience co-oping I can tell you that the excel portion of this class may be the most important thing taught in the CHEN program. The ability to fully utilize the Microsoft office products is beyond lifesaving. In most process engineering jobs, there is not much “engineering” as most people think of it. You will very rarely utilize any mass transfer correlation equations or design a heat exchange. As a process engineer you are managing a process that is more or less worked out and running, however you will be responsible for squeezing every bit of profit and efficiency out of the process, and tasked with making process changes that will do this. You will be asked to justify every parameter and explain every detail of the process. You will be analyzing data to do this, lots of data. If you cannot wield the full power of excel to do this, you are at a disadvantage. You will struggle and your time will be consumed with mundane task. While co-oping I took it upon myself to learn excel VBA and checked out a VBA book from the UGA library (Noramco was located in Athens, Ga). I saved myself an incredible amount of time and soon became the goto source

for all data manipulation at Noramco (this was a blessing and a curse as the time I saved was counterbalanced by my increased workload as people became aware of the fact that they could dump a workbook full of mundane task in my lap and I would do the work for them). On the same note, I found that technical writing to be just as important and possibly more important than the data manipulation. On a site like Noramco everything is documented, everything. Therefore there is quite a lot of writing to be done. Most of the writing I did was technical in nature. The most common document I produced was called a control of change, which explains a problem, a course of action, a justification and possible complications. All of this must be written in a technical manner and be easily understood yet not oversimplified. Additionally I wrote a number of capital appropriation requests along the same lines. It would be no exaggeration to say that between 50% and 75% of an engineer’s time is spent doing technical writing. The use of Microsoft word for this task is essential. The complexity of some of the documents an engineer is required to write requires the use of many of Word’s more advanced features and complete mastery of technical writing. Based on my co-op experience I believe the Auburn CHEN program absolutely requires a course in technical writing. Perhaps something akin to a course I took at UGA for my minor in chemistry. The course was a 4000 level chemistry course called “Scientific Information and Dissemination”. The course covered technical writing as well as topics in how to acquire technical information from scientific journals. Lastly I believe the 3600 course should at least delve a little into the power of Microsoft Access. I utilized access extensively while working for the UGA forest hydrology department, as we tracked the incredible amounts of data associated with open biological systems. The Sankey glaze database is a perfect candidate for use in Access. A script could be written to take the data from excel and enter it into Access as a database (a trick I used at Noramco that saved me a week of tedious work). From there the things that Access can do as far as searches and reports are quite powerful. In fact I designed several reports that my supervisor at Noramco would run each week before the department meeting that saved hours of work on her part (my part actually as she would have me make them manually before I implemented the Access reports).

In conclusion, I have found that time, experience, and a few hard knocks have been the key to becoming a more effective learner. I believe that a little analogy I noticed while waiting tables best describes what you are seeing with students. You can be standing there with a mitt on your hand holding a plate that is steaming, and tell the customer over and over that the plate is hot. Someone at the table will grab the plate and act surprise when they are scalded. Hey, what can you do?

Student 29

How This Class Has Impacted My Journey: I appreciate that the instructor endeavors to help us become better learners. Much of the extra material and resources have helped me improve my understanding of the materials and have aided me in my efforts to become an effective learner. For example, the Learning Styles quiz by Felder helped me identify some aspects of how I learn and advised me how I could improve my learning. I am also glad that the professor is willing to help students outside of class and is willing to spend plenty of time providing that help.

Since I have difficulty with the instructor’s teaching style, this class has taught me to be resourceful and learn things on my own. Most of the time, I do not understand what is going on because I am struggling to keep up (which happens to me in other classes as well), and I have had to find the learning style that works for me and use it. The additional materials provided by the instructor helped me on that journey. It also greatly helps that the instructor has made the class notes available to the students and that they contain helpful examples because it they let me review what was discussed in class and I can study them at my own pace.

However, the instructor’s constant criticism has made a class that I would otherwise enjoy very unpleasant and discouraging. I like computers and programming and I know how useful and important the material is, but this element of the class has made me thoroughly dislike the class and has kept me from fully embracing what is taught. The instructor should strive to encourage and congratulate students (both personally and the class as a whole) when they do something right (event if it is small). For me, praise works much more effectively than criticism because it encourages me to keep doing things right or stimulates me to improve on something that I had done well, and I am sure this is the case for many other students. I think students need positive feedback in larger quantities than criticism. Though criticism can be used constructively, constant criticism discourages learning and participation in the class and takes away the pleasure of learning the material. This also leaves students with a sense of inferiority that undermines the students’ self-confidence, which, after a long time leads students to believe they are unfit for becoming engineers.

Encouragements to Learning: The chemical engineering department has mainly helped me in understanding what is expected of an engineer working in an industrial setting. All chemical engineering instructors have either emphasized or repeatedly pointed out various skills and knowledge that a chemical engineers in industry is expected to have to or know, or that would give them an advantage in their careers. However, I find it difficult to have confidence in the instructor’s claims when the instructor has not worked in an industrial setting.

I also value the strong emphasis that the department places on co-oping. I think co-oping is an invaluable experience and that all students should do it, or at least do an internship. Co-oping, above all, let me see what is expected of an engineer working in an industrial setting, and it certainly helped me realize the importance of school because I saw the application of the principles that I learned. It also allowed me to see what it is like in the business world. However, I think the department is not flexible enough for co-op students because not all classes are offered every semester and that tends to upset a student’s schedule (it did for me).

Obstacles to Student Learning: The department needs to be proactive in helping students develop a strategy, in changing the students’ attitudes toward chemical engineering (and engineering in general), and helping remove learning obstacles for students.

One of the most significant obstacles to learning that I have experienced is that instructors oftentimes don’t practice what they teach. For example, we students may be constantly reprimanded by the instructor for various careless mistakes or lack of attention to detail, such as spelling mistakes, but the instructor him/herself frequently makes the same mistakes. It is extremely frustrating to me and other students when the teacher makes the same mistakes that he/she constantly criticizes the students for, and it makes me lose some respect for the instructor.

Another obstacle to learning that I have experienced is that sometimes instructors seem to forget that students are not as familiar with the material as they are, and expect students to solve the problems quickly or make comments like “This is obvious,” or “That’s stupid,” or “I can’t understand why you can’t do this” when the students are having difficulty with the material presented. This kind of comment undermines my self-confidence and I find it extremely discouraging and degrading. I think comments like this have affected my grades because, after being told so many times that I am stupid or incompetent or something similar, I started to believe that I was indeed stupid and not capable of being a good student and I took exams with the mentality that it was an impossible feat to make good grades—and of course, I didn’t make good grades on the exams. Instructors should put themselves in the students’ shoes and try to remember what it is like being a student. After all, instructors were once students too, and I don’t think that those days are so long gone that they can’t remember and empathize with us.

Another obstacle I encountered was not really being taught how to solve problems, then being expected to be able to solve problems when I took CHEN2100. I think I would have fared much better if I had been taught the foundations of solving engineering problems before taking the class, and I think that could have been accomplished in ENGR1110. I think time was not effectively spent in ENGR1110 in showing students the necessary skills to solve problems for future engineering classes, and they struggle when they take those classes. I feel that for the benefit of future chemical engineering students, problem solving should be emphasized more strongly in ENGR1110, or perhaps CHEN3600 should be taken earlier in the curriculum, since one of the goals of the class is to teach problem-solving skills. Most of the material in CHEN3600 can be taught without requiring students to take other CHEN classes.

I also believe my math, physics, and chemistry classes at Auburn didn’t prepare me for engineering classes, and many students I have talked to feel the same way. I remember being in one chemical engineering class and the instructor said something like, “You should know this from calculus,” and most of the students were looking around at each other clueless because they had never seen that before. In another particular case, the professor said something about physics similar to the previous comment, but most of us had barely touched on the particular concept in our physics classes at Auburn. There seems to be a discrepancy between what the Chemical Engineering Department expects students to be taught, and what students are actually taught.

Sometimes I do not understand the way the instructor teaches, or the way the book explains the material, etc., and I find it difficult to learn the materials. For some reason, I was under the impression that I had to learn the material the way the teacher taught it or the way the textbook explained it, and it took me a while to realize that there are different styles of learning and that I should find mine. I think instructors should provide alternate ways of learning the material, such as websites, books, etc. or encourage students to finding the way of learning that works for them (for those students who are under the same impression that I was). Another obstacle that has affected me is that some instructors are not encouraging when students ask questions. Over the years this has led me to refrain from asking questions in class or speaking out in class.

Other obstacles to learning include that most teachers seem like they don’t care about how the students do in the class, are not easily available to students for extra help, or do not seem approachable. Some faculty are very difficult to find or keep their door closed when they are in their office, which gives students the impression that the teacher is either not there or does not want to be bothered. While this is understandable occasionally, it should not become a frequent habit because it discourages students from seeking help. I have found that most instructors are personable one-on-one, but I never would have guessed it from the way they treat the class. During the first half of my college career, I found it very difficult to seek help from chemical engineering instructors because many of them seemed like they didn’t care about how I did in the class or appeared intimidating or condescending. Though I was sure I would have profited from their help, it took a long time for me to finally becoming comfortable with going to talk to a professor one-on-one.

Some teachers are under the impression that students don’t want to learn or care to learn or that they don’t study, and this is simply not the case. Most students do want to learn (otherwise they wouldn’t attempt to go through such a difficult major), but since they have other classes, commitments, and responsibilities, they can’t spend all the time so on one single class. Also, instructors are often surprised when students can’t do “simple math,” but this shouldn’t be a surprise because students do more complicated math for so long that they forget how to work simple problems or they make them harder than they actually are. Something that I think would help the students learn is showing pictures or videos of what they are learning (e.g. heat exchangers, pipe fittings, flow regimes, etc.) so they can better visualize what they are learning and can identify it out in the field when they work.

Student 30

Knowledge – The Foundation

Everyone begins learning at a very early age; though, not everyone becomes an “effective learner.” Those who decide to hone their learning skills, discover their strengths and weaknesses, and organize their priorities early on are the ones who able to contribute the most to their career field and community. To do this one must begin with a firm foundation and, in the case of Bloom’s Taxonomy, this foundation is knowledge. In this day and age, technology allows us to acquire the answer to any question with just a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. However, unless one develops a solid foundation of practical knowledge, they will never be able to advance their ability to learn.

Personally, I never committed to memory the basic principles of mathematics, and it showed when I came to Auburn. I was immediately aware that the students around me were more quickly able to solve problems and understand concepts in some of my first classes, such as Principles of Chemical Engineering and Engineering Physics. While other students were learning new concepts to build upon, I was struggling to go back and learn the “basics” all over again. The reason for this lies within my years in high school. I participated in Scholar’s Bowl in high school and have always enjoyed watching quiz game shows. I have been known to be quite the random facts junkie over the years. And while this random knowledge may be of some use in certain situations, it is not necessarily a good foundation for the future advancement of an individual’s learning. In my high school classes, I could always memorize everything the night before a test and make really good grades. That, of course, changed when I began taking college level math and engineering classes. I feel that if I would have spent more time through my years in high school to becoming more knowledgeable academically, specifically in science and math related subjects, I would not have struggled so much coming into the engineering curriculum. This would have enabled me to do better in all of my classes—it would have allowed me to spend more time learning to comprehend what I was being taught as opposed to playing ‘catch up’ in my engineering courses.

Comprehension - The Gateway

The next step up from knowledge in Bloom’s Taxonomy is “comprehension,” a topic that I had no real grasp of until this particular course. In the Computer-Aided Engineering course, it is not nearly good enough to simply know the names of every function within Excel or VBA. One must become familiar with and understand how each of these functions work. If I was to learn the name of every function, but not understand how each one works, I have gained nothing that will profit me in promoting my learning ability or increasing my attractiveness to potential employers.

For example, if I were a lawyer who was appointed by the President to be the Attorney General of the United States and I knew every law in every state but had no idea what the legislation really meant and entailed, I would be of little use to the President and this country. Anyone can look up state and federal laws in just a few seconds with the level of technology the world currently has at its disposal. What sets lawyers apart from the rest of the populace is their ability

to comprehend what laws mean and how they work. The same applies to engineers. If I were to attempt to go into industry without a thorough comprehension of the principles and subjects that were taught to me over the course of my college career, I would be doomed from the start.

The way in which this course is structured, specifically in regards to the homework and exams, requires that each student must not only be knowledgeable about the subjects discussed in class, they must also have a level of comprehension that allows them to efficiently and effectively apply what has been taught in class. For it is when one applies their knowledge to situations they are not familiar with that “true” learning can occur. This course has pushed me harder than any other course I have taken to date due solely to the fact that it is essential for me to comprehend, not merely possess knowledge of, what is taught in class. The same thing that happened to me in high school happened again once I began taking chemical engineering courses: I would memorize the information needed to pass the exams, and then forget it as soon as the exam was finished. This course has opened my eyes to the fact that in order to become an effective learner, and in turn an asset to industry, I must treat subjects that are taught to me as building blocks. I must become knowledgeable in chemical engineering concepts. I must then continue to dig deeper in these topics until I have a thorough comprehension of the subject matter. Once I comprehend, I can then pass through the gateway towards the application of my knowledge.

Application – The Frontier

As previously stated, once one understands the knowledge they have obtained, they can apply it to new situations that have never been encountered before. In every class that I can recall prior to this course, the exam questions were all similar to homework problems or examples that were done in class. Therefore, if you were familiar enough with the problems that had been worked previously, you could most likely figure out way to work exam problems in a similar fashion. This does not hold true for CHEN 3600. Test questions, and even the homework assignments, are usually unlike any example given in class. However, if I take the time to go over my lecture notes and the examples that are discussed in class, I notice that I become extremely familiar with the capabilities of both Excel and VBA. Once I have become familiar with the capabilities of Excel and VBA and I understand what functions should be used in specific situations. I find that when I encounter a problem that is unlike anything I have attempted to solve before, I have the skills to apply the knowledge that I have obtained and can solve the problem with ease despite never working a similar problem.

It is in the ability to apply knowledge to new situations that the key to success in industry is found. I know that if I can successfully apply my chemical engineering knowledge that I acquire while at Auburn to solve unexpected problems, I will be an extremely valuable asset in the eyes of industry. Engineers solve problems. If I have no critical thinking or problem solving skills, I cannot call myself an engineer. I know that building my knowledge may be the careers of my instructors, but it is my job to take the time to understand and learn to apply the knowledge that is supplied by my instructors. By learning to apply my knowledge effectively, I open an infinite frontier of possibilities for myself. Although I had heard horror stories about this course before taking it, the truth is that this course sets you on track to become a true engineer. There are many challenges and much work along the way, but once I grasped the true nature of the difficulty of

the course, I was able to understand what it meant to be an engineer and to become proud that I was pursuing such a prestigious and intellectual career.

Student 31

As I reflect on my progress through the Auburn Chemical Engineering curriculum, I remember the classes which taught me the most important study lessons I carry with me now. Dr. Byrne’s Principles class is where I learned how to handle 40-hours of homework, week after week, and the importance of rationing that work over several days. Dr. Maples’ Thermo 1 is where I learned that the homework material is not always the exam material, and it pays to have good study friends and plenty of time to dedicate to the library. That lesson was reinforced by MATLAB, which taught me that sometimes working long hours to complete one task in a single sitting is extremely valuable to my learning. Dr. Davis’ Phase and Reaction Equilibria is where I first learned how to study for a week straight, ten hours a day for a final. That was the first class which truly and unwaveringly used the Course Objectives list as the study guide for the final, and that alone taught me how well planned the Chemical Engineering curriculum is. Ever since, I have made great efforts to review and guide my learning by the Course Objectives for each class. In addition to the course material, I learned how to refine my study habits in each class I have taken, from high school through college.

Undoubtedly, there is always a lesson to learn about your own study skills. But a student must learn this on his own, for his own survival. No one is responsible for teaching him such skills at the collegiate level, and indeed, it would be surprising for a student to even make it this far without having learned how to manage his own studying.

In Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering, we have reviewed several learning theories and methods. There is Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking which greets us every time we visit the course webpage, reminding us that knowledge is only the most basic part of our education. We have learned about the driven-by-need method of problem solving, which teaches us to narrow our focus to the exact task at hand. We have reviewed various articles concerning “simple errors” made in professional settings which have led to (sometimes catastrophic) failures, which stresses the importance of thorough labor and double-checking one’s work. The purpose of all of these stories and methods which we have reviewed in class and out of class has been to make us think about our efforts and our learning. And this initiative is not unique. Indeed, even some of the articles we have studied have discussed the importance of professors encouraging learning skills in their students. The “Curve of Forgetting” was researched and developed by a professor with that same goal; he wanted to use his tool to extend effective learning to students everywhere.

These same topics have been a common theme in my education since elementary school, and I have always been inspired by them. As a child whose primary goal was to make her parents proud, I dedicated hours of quality time with my homework, and tried to put into practice the lessons my teachers provided about learning styles and the Curve of Forgetting. This semester has been nostalgic for me because of the memories of many influential teachers from my middle school. The unique topic on learning from which I have benefited the most in this class has been the Concept Inventory Exam. When a few obscure topics from the exam are mentioned in class, it gives me a brief moment to quiz myself on my knowledge and understanding. When I later review my notes, it offers an opportunity to review the topics more in depth.

In closing, I recently attended the 2010 AIChE National Conference. It was very illuminating, and very reminiscent of Computer-Aided, to observe that one of the big topics was the retention of knowledge. Very frequently throughout the conference, speakers gave pieces of advice to the attendees, who were mostly students. “Never stop learning,” was one of their messages. “Do your best to dig deep into the material, in every class you take,” was another. It was impressive to us that these industry and academic leaders would urge us to learn our material well and not to forget it. It is clear, from my grade school experience, from the professional conference recently attended, and from this class, that the gaining of knowledge, the progression into understanding, and the capacity for application are the entire purpose of our education. Every new class gives us a new opportunity to exercise these powers. Our job is to take hold of our education, and never let it go.

Student 32

Introduction: Prior to this class, my experience with different learning methods and especially Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning were very limited. I was introduced to the Curve of Forgetting in CHEN 2100 by Dr. Byrne during lecture, although it was not covered in great depth. Only in passing was learning actually emphasized in any of my classes, and I feel as though it was a lesson that I would have greatly benefited from at an earlier stage in my development, most definitively before I arrived at Auburn University.

I feel that learning how to think is a great challenge in any class that you take, Psychology requires different modes of thought than Physics, and problem solving requires a vastly different skill set than recitation. In my journey to become an effective learner this has been a great struggle for me.

Approach to this Class: I had made it a goal at the beginning of this course to set a regiment of what I believed would make me successful in the class. With Dr. Placek’s recommendation, I was setting out to recall my lessons in journal form, and review them at a later date. I figured that this one thing alone would help me greatly succeed in the class. In addition to this I planned on reading all materials ahead of time and completing all supplemental material given by the instructor. In addition to this, as the semester progressed I planned on attending the instructional support that the graduate assistants offered every week. I was aware that this class would involve a far greater effort than most of the other classes that I had taken before.

In regard to the taxonomy of learning, I had a grasp on the corporeal idea that there were different levels of understanding, but this really helped create a tangible way to assess myself on where I was in the process. This tool of evaluation will be very beneficial to me to be carried forward to the rest of my classes and future jobs. In addition to this I think the macro abilities and micro skills list is a good reference to check myself on what skills I need to be adding to my toolkit to become an effective engineer.

Self Assessment: In no other class have I taken a better assessment of my learning style than in this class. Throughout the semester I have had to cope with many shortcomings, and had to strive to better motivate myself to continue even when I am doing well. It is a struggle when going through a course which involves such mental rigor, and at several times I notice that I have lost focus and my self-discipline has faltered. At points earlier in the course I found myself writing in a journal, reflecting on what I learned for the day. I know that this has helped me to retain the information that I had spent time writing in the journal. However, over the last month I haven’t brought myself to do this consistently, and instead have been introspectively recalling the lessons over the course of the day. This failure to regiment myself manifested in a poor performance on my last test. Even though the results were clear, I am not so sure that this may be entirely attributed to my lack of strictly following the plan that I had laid out at the beginning of the semester. I am not entirely sure that I have made a good approach to learning the discipline of programming. It is unlike any other subject we have encountered yet, and at times can be much more difficult. The most upsetting thing to me throughout the process of the last

test, was that I was able to complete the example problems without too much difficulty, but when it came to the exam I seemed to lack the application that I thought I had a very strong grasp on.

Up to this point in the class, I feel as though I am definitely gaining a better grasp on programming, and a much greater control over excel as a platform. Both of these things I am pleased with. However, I am not (up to this point) pleased with myself as a student or an engineer. I have found trouble being disciplined and making strides to learn more effectively. This takes effort, and I am afraid that I have fallen short in this area consistently. I hope that I am better in the future, but I know that it is going to be an effort, and it seems daunting at times.

Needless to say, this class has been nothing less than a rude awakening as to how much I really had left to learn about learning itself, and how much work I needed to do to form myself into an effective thinker and productive engineer.

Readjusted Goals: I feel that even though I have many shortcomings up to this point in the class that I can still be very successful and get even more out of it than I had anticipated. I will continue to struggle with motivation, but I think that I certainly am capable of becoming a more effective learner, student, and engineer. I would like to try and continue scribing recollections of lessons and particularly paying more attention to what I learn in the context of the taxonomy of learning. I would like to make weekly assessments of the knowledge I gained for the previous week and at that point perhaps write some of my own problems (which was previously unmentioned as a method I found to be really beneficial from the in class quiz given).

I am confident that knowing these things that I will be able to move forward and succeed in this class. I hope to reflect further on this in the future and realize some of the goals I have written.