Due to the impact of Covid-19, many students are unable to return to campus and resume face to face teaching. In order to ensure these students receive an education of equivalent quality, especially practical lab sessions, staff of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FoSE) have been pulling out the stops.
In a recent lab session of the module “Thermodynamic and Heat Transfer”, seven international Chemical Engineering students finished three experiments, adjusting three variables remotely and examining the relationships between pressure and temperature in an evaporator and condenser.
The experiment was broadcasted live to all the international students via Zoom. Students gave instructions and the graduate teaching assistants followed their instructions to finish the experiment and collect data. After the lab course, students needed to finish a group report based on the data they collected from the experiment.
“I think the online lab via Zoom went really great. Our graduate teaching assistant was very kind and helpful. Although we were not in the lab in person, it made me feel like I was, by getting to experience the same as my peers on campus. Surprisingly, we had no problems while we were doing the experiment. It was really fantastic! Thank you and other staff for making this run smoothly!” said Pan Thi Khine, a year 2 Chemical Engineering student from Myanmar.
Dr Philip Hall, the Head of Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, recalled: “As we were preparing the teaching plan for the return, the problem was how we could carry out lab classes for non-returning students. The key issue was how we could give non-returning students an experience the same as students at UNNC. The cloud chemistry experiment led by our colleagues at the University of Nottingham came to mind. They successfully proved the feasibility of remote-controlled experiments with researchers around the world and published their findings in Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/nchem.2143). The same principle can be applied to our lab teaching here at UNNC.”
In order to ensure that no student would be disadvantaged, FoSE is committed to providing students with a learning experience of high quality.
Published on 25 May 2020