The chemical engineering faculty at Tennessee Technological University have been involved in a curriculum redesign to integrate lab and lecture such that students see an immediate need for the concepts they are learning, and thereby anchor those concepts. Some of the goals of this effort are retention, long-term recall, integrative thinking skills, and improvement of critical thinking. Here we define critical thinking in a narrow sense…the ability to effectively critique the experimental process and modify or improve it appropriately. Nine senior chemical engineering students from a capstone laboratory class have been involved in this study, whereby they were asked to investigate and construct certain projects associated with biodiesel production (a technology which drew significant student interest). The capstone experience thus became a direct, theme-oriented extension of concepts introduced in core coursework. In other words, student engineering competencies were challenged by a project that needed to be implemented from fundamentals to actual operation. In particular, the students had to critique and rewrite an existing proposal for building a reactor experiment, identify and/or justify the best location for the experiment, plan the operation for safety assurance, apply team work strategies, order the components, build the reactor, benchmark reactor performance, collect data, communicate results, and identify future efforts. The educational strategy was based on the Hi-Pele (High Performance Learning Environment) approach proposed by Arce ^1,2. We will discuss test results measuring improvements in critical thinking in this setting, as measured by a critical thinking instrument developed by researchers at TTU ^3,4. Using this instrument, ten specific skills were identified as central to critical thinking, and development in these skill sets is assessed using short-answer essay questions and graded by independent faculty from across campus.

1. Arce, P., The Colloquial Approach: An Active Learning Technique, Jr. of Science, Education & Technology, 3(3), and 145 (1994). 2. Mario A. Oyanader, P. Arce, And Whitaker S., "The Catalytic Pellet: A Rich Prototype for Engineering Scaling", Chem. Eng. Education, 2007. (In Press) 3. Stein, B., Haynes, A., and Understein, J. (2003). Assessing Critical Thinking.. Paper, SACS Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, 12- 2003. 4. Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R.. R. (Eds.) 2000. How people learn: Brain,mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C., National Academy Press.

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