2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this practice paper is to discuss the pedagogical practices that were applied in a chemical engineering classroom to promote a supportive learning environment. Chemical engineering is a challenging major. Due to the rigorous nature of the curriculum, it can be hard to navigate for many undergraduate students. A supportive learning environment could make the journey easier for many students, especially those from marginalized backgrounds for whom curriculum difficulty might be combined with feelings of isolation. To create a supportive classroom, we implemented some interventions in an elective course in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChemBE) department of our institution, which is a private university with high research activity in an urban metropolitan city in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Some of the interventions included emphasizing the importance of mutual respect and learning in the syllabus, supportive and flexible teaching, use of real-life examples, and promotion of cooperative learning. Group debates were included as part of cooperative learning, which focused on discussions on the ethical and social implications of various biotechnologies such as gene editing, human-animal chimera, brain organoids, and so on. Qualitative analysis of the reflections from 20 students (collected from two semesters of the course offering) suggested that supportive and effective teaching along with a well-structured course positively impacted students’ learning experiences, feelings about the major, and peer interactions. Most of the interventions that we used can be implemented by any engineering educator, which could aid in transforming the culture and environment of engineering education in general. We are continuing this work to upgrade our quantitative analysis to assess the sense of belonging of students specifically in classroom as well as in major. This work is currently supported through an internal grant.