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2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Enhancing Entrepreneurial Minded Learning of Process Control and Heat Transfer Concepts Using Micromoments and Concept Maps

Presented at Inclusivity, Mentorship, and Entrepreneurial Thinking

The Entrepreneurially Minded Learning (EML) Framework seeks to infuse an Entrepreneurial Mindset in engineering students. The EML framework is founded on the 3 C’s principles of curiosity, connections, and creating value. Assessing EML efforts, however, is a well-known challenge for many engineering courses that do not have a design component. Through concept maps and micromoment activities, this work seeks to answer the following questions: Does implementing micromoment activities enhance students’ EML in two core areas of chemical engineering, i.e., heat transfer and process controls? A secondary research question is whether introducing a physical device in lectures enhances students’ EML. The micromoments were introduced at two Universities in the USA and Mexico.

Using Cmap Tools, a freely available software, students were asked to create a digital concept map connecting their learning to the concepts explained using a 3 C’s model: curiosity, connections, and creating value. Then three micromoment activities, including process control and/or heat transfer scenarios, were presented to the students to reinforce 1) heat exchanger control concepts, feedback control schemes, and advanced control schemes concepts in a Process Control course and 2) heat transfer concepts, processes, and applications after using and answering questions related to a "hands-on" double pipe heat exchanger module in a Heat Transfer Processes course. Subsequently, students were asked to update their original concept map and to adjust their maps considering the three micromoment activities. The digital concept maps were scored using the traditional scoring approach, and the total score was used to provide a quantitative assessment of whether EM-oriented micromoments enhanced students’ EML. A 10 – 20 point difference in concept map total score increase was observed at both universities after introducing the micromoment activities. In summary, we developed technical micromoment activities and demonstrated their effectiveness using concept maps as EML assessment tools for core chemical engineering courses.

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