The Chemical Engineering CDIO Experience After 5 Years Of Implementation

This paper summarizes the curriculum re-design effort for the Diploma in Chemical Engineering of Singapore Polytechnic over the past five years since adopting CDIO in November 2006. We firstly present our 5-year implementation road map and overall approach to implementing CDIO. This documents our work in gap-analysis, skill mapping, curriculum innovation, while making some comparison to our curriculum prior to CDIO adoption. Secondly, we discuss the challenges faced, focusing on two key areas: (1) Concern over reducing technical content and/or insufficient time to cover all technical content; and (2) concern over high workload and ability to teach “soft” CDIO skills. We then share important insights gained and our approach towards sustaining faculty CDIO capability. We share our findings on the effectiveness of our re-designed curriculum, in terms of student learning experience, student retention rate, and feedback from recent graduates. The major outcomes have been positive, based on the information collected. Thirdly, several critical success factors are identified, all of which had a common denominator: the human dimension. Specifically, this entailed the importance of leadership support, role of early adopters and education advisors, faculty mindset and managing student expectations.

Proceedings of the 9th International CDIO Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 9 – 13, 2013.