1. CACHE Breakout, 11/8/2013: Teaching materials Richard Braatz, Scott Fogler, Mike Henson, Robert Hesketh, Jason Keith, Ed Maginn, Charles Petty, Rex Reklaitis, Phil Westmoreland (scribe)

2. (1) Aspen; Teaching process design throughout the curriculum At Chairs meeting, someone said Aspen tutorials were too high-level. Mike — Maybe it was just a lack of recent experience? Aspen’s new tutorials are good (FlashDrum) Robert — Provide aid from CACHE? Write new problems / solutions. One challenge is a problem is keeping up with its new interface. Rex — Repository of ASPEN problems? Introductory material. Voice- over lectures. Run examples in the cloud. – Mike — Aspen has a LOT of that stuff on its university website, including downloadable simulations, PowerPoint slides, Word descriptions, all accessed through a passcode. The cloud runtime access would be good. – Rex —Sure, easier to run on campus server directly rather than a nanoHUB-like cloud service, but that’s what Matlab/nanoHUB does. – Ed — Also, Mark Shiflett of DuPont has developed a series of “How-to- Use Aspen” segments that are on the Web and has offered its use. – Robert — CACHE could put up an interface page to all this activity. Rex — Sponsor developing examples? Like $500 ea from Aspen?

3. And some others. Charles — Analogies with CD-Adapco and Ansys (who is tying up with Aspen). They want to know what to do about education. Robert — Comsol also. Some people use ChemCat for design/simulation educational S/W. Jason — Also can build around Polymath. Mike — Need to push Aspen down earlier in the curriculum. The more powerful the tool, the more time to learn to use it. [Warren: Book with Lewin has tutorials / problems.] [No action defined]

4. (2) Homework and student-based learning in an “Everything’s on the Web” world Jason — Need more homework problems. Students have copies of all the solution manuals. – Richard — I give quizzes every two weeks with questions from the book. – Scott — Use the tools to solve the problem, sure, but how to count the homework? [Several people: Light credit.] Robert — Jason Bara does a problem-generator / parameter-variation code. – Richard — But students become calculators. And open access means it’s out there forever, partial textbooks and problems/solutions accessible to students. – Robert - Saplinglearning.com is online problem generator grader for a fee. [No action defined]

5. (3) Analytics and statistics are increasingly vital needs. Rex —Everybody needs applied statistics. What can we do? Richard —At MIT, we find in the applied math course there is a large fraction of students who know very little about statistics. But we do teach it. Mike — At UMass, we have one-third of an applied-math course that is on statistics & data analysis. Rex — Purdue has a required 3-credit applied statistics course. Could have a white paper. Two or three years out, students say it is the most important course they take. Scott — At Michigan, once or twice a week (~1cr course) in our lab course. Mike — Most faculty don’t have enough background to be comfortable.

6. Analytics and statistics are increasingly vital. General discussion — White papers? Format: 10pp? Survey first? Need data-gathering (survey, practices). – Richard — Collect some of the materials, then proceed. – Scott — I think there was a CEE article on statistics. Mike — Form task force or ad hoc group? Scott — Could have a CACHE session on use / teaching of statistics. Richard — In my course, I use computer-based methods heavily. Remember that it’s important to include execution, not just theory of statistics.

7. Analytics and statistics: Actions! Richard – I could assemble a state-of-the-materials set from a few people doing this. Phil — We could prepare a one-page white paper, use it to elicit a survey response, then follow with a deeper report of practices and opportunities. Rex - What should be minimum skill level? Ask recent alums and industry. – Phil: Ask recent Purdue grads who say the course was so important. Richard — One approach is to provide a menu of available-time options: If you had one week, do this; if a month, then …; if a course, then what?

8. What is the driver? The content? Where is the most important part? Design of experiments? Often driven by personal faculty agendas? – Charles — Most schools probably integrate into the lab purely as design of experiments, maybe regression. Jason — Make modules? Mini-lectures? Application examples? Scott — Check for what Falconer has in LearnChemE.com. Rex — Sure, faculty can be anxious about doing it, but the needed math level isn’t that high. Robert — Bigger, simulated experiment using DoE? Like in Frank Doyle’s book? Ed — Remember, too, it’s not just undergrad students who need it. [Richard Braatz will help coordinate gathering of teaching/technical material in use now.]

9. (4) Teaching programming? Teaching logic and algorithmic thinking. Richard — Comment on logic. Entry grad students tend not to have any knowledge of algorithmic logic. Rex — Jeff gave us a lecture at Purdue that said at Eastman, we’d never want to hire someone who couldn’t program some. Not because they needed to program, but because they need to understand the logic of constructing a solution approach and trouble- shooting. Phil and Ed: For self-learning coding, codeacademy.com is absolutely terrific. [No action defined]

10. (5) Teaching the logic of trouble- shooting as a life-long skill. Scott — Broader aspect: Donald Woods had a terrific set of trouble- shooting examples (his book “Trouble-shooting” about three years ago). Tom Marlin of McMaster taught course at this meeting on it. Rex — Given that this material is out there, what could CACHE do? How to disseminate? – Phil — Deliverable for AIChE Academy? Freshman? Capstone? A menu of levels! – Robert — Consider Willison group at Texas. – Rex — Put it in course context? Pieces? – Scott — AIChE has a course on TRIZ (problem-solving algorithm). Boeing example of trouble-shooting of stretching the plane -> bigger engine -> clearance issues, etc.. – Robert — We can put links on the Teaching Resource Center. – Ed — We can put up examples. – Scott — Michael Dickey of NCSU has a good problem.

11. Teaching the logic of trouble-shooting: Possible actions. Charles — Possible industrial support? [Scott: Yes, and definitely don’t just think NSF.] Great approach: Take industries’ case studies and develop modules. Scott — First, companies want to see why to do it; transitioning from school could be good reason. Example with slides could be a basis for industrial decision. Charles — Work with industrial workshop at each meeting? All — Get Marlin to summer CACHE meeting. Could develop modules, menu, industrial, AIChE Academy. [Scott can make initial contact to Marlin, to be followed by formal invitation from CACHE officers.]

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