The introduction of an autumn and spring activity week into the first year of a chemical engineering undergraduate program in Malaysia

This paper outlines the design and implementation of two activity weeks in the autumn (first) and spring (second) semester of a first year Chemical Engineering program at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. Part of both the Chemical and Chemical with Environmental Engineering curriculum, these week long activity weeks were developed to foster students independent learning using open ended tasks, all linked through one overarching “industrial theme”. Designed to combine topics from a number of different taught modules into single problems, the activity weeks introduced students to multimodular problems whose solutions required a student centred approach utilising enhanced student-staff interaction. Feedback is presented from both staff and students, along with problems encountered during implementation and how these were overcome. Students were generally positive about the learning experience, and student performance during the weeks was greater than in the subsequent exams. However, this performance and enhanced interaction with staff came with an associated increase in teaching time required to plan and implement such activities.